The Pastor’s Pen

I wish to encourage you to be glad in the Lord.

Jesus Christ gives us many reasons to be glad, thankful, and joyful. While gladness may be kindled by many things, for the believer it is primarily set alight by all things God. King David recognised this when he said; “I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High” (Psalm 9:1-2).

God’s supernal majesty, along with His extraordinary deeds, fired David into praise, thanks, and worship, all giving expression of his gladness. “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure” (Psalm 16:9). David’s gladness flowed from his inner most being, radiating out the realisation of security, so that even his body was physically aware of it. Gladness in the Lord positively affects our entire being, as Solomon makes clear, “A glad heart makes a cheerful face” (Proverbs 15:13).

Counter to worldly thinking about self-image, self-importance, self-love, self-forgiveness, self-motivation, and all other self-philosophy, we who love and trust Jesus Christ happily acknowledge our weaknesses and vulnerabilities rather that deny them. For us, the Lord’s reassuring words to Paul remain true today; “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, we agree with Paul’s response, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

When rebellious sinners return to the Lord repentant, we gladly respond as the brother of the prodigal son was exhorted, because it’s “fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32). The salvation of another should propel worship with great joy, because we understand the eternal value of a rescued soul in God’s sight.

A Cautionary Note

With gladness comes the cautionary note concerning how to treat those who mistreat us; “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles” (Proverbs 24:17). When we’re glad in the Lord, His mercy effects our responses to others, even our enemies, who we are to love and pray for (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:35). Being born again in Jesus Christ, indwelt by His Holy Spirit, we recognise that we’re blessed “when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12). “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13).

Regardless of circumstances, and in spite of personal pain or sacrifice, the believers priority is that Jesus Christ is exalted, and in this we are the most glad! The Lord declares; “Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, ‘Great is the LORD, who delights in the welfare of his servant!‘ To which we respond, “Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long” (Psalm 35:27-28).

I encourage you to show your gladness in the Lord today. Believers should not be secretive or shy, put timidity behind you, radiate the wonder of sins forgiven and the security of knowing the free gift of eternal life. Speak well of the Saviour today, for “Your name, O LORD, endures forever, your renown, O LORD, throughout all ages” (Psa 135:13).

I wish to encourage you to entrust the unexplainable to God.

It’s easy to find ourselves struggling to accept the unpleasant things in life which we don’t understand.

God, whose “eyes are on the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps” (Job 34:21), knows our lives. While He’s under no obligation to explain His reasons for the life He allows us to live, He never-the-less gives us insights and comfort enabling perseverance in the faith. The writer of Deuteronomy 29:29 tells it the way it is; “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law”. The bottom line is this, while there are things we will never understand, we are to grab hold of the truths that God has made clear to us, live by them, and teach them to the next generation.

Unlike God, we’re not omniscient (all knowing). However, God has revealed Himself to us (Rom 1:19) through creation (Rom 1:20), through His Son Jesus Christ (Heb 1:2), through His written Word the Bible (2Ti 3:16), through the testimony of Christians (Act 2:40-41), through His Holy Spirit’s witness within His children, and through our own hearts awareness and conscience (Rom 2:14-15).

In God’s kindness, He has enabled us to understand His truths. Through trusting faith in Christ as Lord, we can realise that we are actually blessed “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). The Psalmist reminds us that “those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you” (Psalm 9:10). The issue is not having unexplained experiences; rather, do we seek the Lord and put our trust in Him, including trusting Him with life’s mysteries? Our responsibility is not to begrudge God for not giving us the understanding we wanted, but to simply “trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

Accept that God’s ways are not our ways, He does not think like us (Isaiah 55:8), and He does not have to answer to us for this fact. Our natural processes of spiritual evaluation are limited by our mortality and weakened by our sinfully independent natures. Therefore, we either reject God’s ways or accept them. There is no in between state! No one foot in, and one foot out position. No sitting on the fence waiting to see how it all turns out. No negotiating a deal with the Almighty. We either believe, or disbelieve.

“Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust” (Psalm 40:4). You see, our peace does not come from understanding everything that happens in life. No, it comes from trusting in the loving God who oversees everything that happens in our lives. As Jesus said to Thomas, “do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27). This is how Paul could say, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Philippians 4:11). Paul knew who he believed in!

I encourage you to entrust the unexplainable to God, starting with all those things which have built a wall between you and the Lord. Let God be God!  Let us be His submissive children, content in Christ alone!

I wish to encourage you to live as if time were not your own.

We live in a world where the preciousness of time is mostly taken for granted, living as if life has no end, as if pleasures are all that matters, as if personal fulfilment is the supreme goal of our existence. Contrary to worldly thinking, God is not a kill-joy! He agrees, it’s good to have fun, to explore the adventures of life, and to appreciate the exciting times. However, wonderful experiences should be lived for the purpose of God’s glory, not for sin.

Job, having lost all this world treasures (possessions, money, children, friends, employees, popularity, health), presents us with a sobering reality check; “Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble” (Job 14:1). We are delicately paused within mortality, housed within fragile bodies, and near sighted concerning the certainty of eternity. James, Jesus younger brother, sums up our vulnerability; “you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). The Lord informed Belshazzar; “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end” (Daniel 5:26). Jesus told a parable emphasising this reality; a rich farmer said to himself, “I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:18-20).

Time is a precious gift, not to be taken for granted. As we all know, there are no second chances at how we use time. There is no ‘Restart or Replay’ buttons, no reincarnation. There is no negotiation or bargaining at the end of our time. We cannot deny the inevitability of that day which awaits us all. I recall my 85 year old Dad, telling me how he still felt like a 21 year old. Yet, his body was spent, time had run its course. Dad’s legacy was that he had lived his time for the Lord Jesus Christ. Dad was ready and happy to be taken home to His Heavenly Father.

The apostle Peter reminds us that we should live our “time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God” (1 Peter 4:2). As Christians “we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8). Our time was never ours in the first place. God always intended it to be used for loving Him through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

I pray that all who read this, will not love “the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God” (John 12:43). I encourage you, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Allow Christ to take control, to determine your daily decisions, to speak the gospel through you, to live out His character through you. Submit to the Saviour’s will, live your time as if it were not your own. Live His time which is entrusted to you for His purpose and His glory.

I wish to encourage you to live to see God’s will done.

A common condition that cuts across all cultures, and manifests from an early age, is that we don’t respond well when we don’t get what we want. We are typically very protective of our ‘so-called rights’ to do what we want. In other words, we naturally tend to will and do as we please. Not so the child of God!

Jesus, instructing His disciples on how to pray, following His initial worship, says, “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). While most believers are very happy for God’s will to be perfectly and instantaneously carried out in heaven, we’re lease than enthusiastic to apply the same principle to our own lives. The fact is, in this matter of living for God’s will to be done, we need to increasingly adopt the attitude of John the Baptist, “He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Genuinely desiring our Heavenly Father’s will to be accomplished in our lives is an integral component of our highest worship. In so doing, we acknowledge His rightful sovereignty, His entitlement to Lordship, and our rightful servitude. In this most important matter, we need to regularly ask, as the disciples did, Lord “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5).

Our very salvation evidences that, “He (God) predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:5). God’s will always has purpose. He never does anything simply for the sake of doing it. As “those who belong to Christ Jesus (who) have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24-25), let us focus our spiritual, emotional, and intellectual “minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:2-3).

As is so often the case, Christ leads by divine example, exemplifying His righteous submission when saying; “I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30). Obviously, what our Heavenly Father wants, how He wants to accomplish what He wants, and His timing, is going to differ from our way of thinking; “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8). God’s eternal holiness, His infinite knowledge and wisdom, His glory, His mercy, and His love of us, all work together to determine His will for our lives. He sees and understands every component of every situation, nothing is overlooked, and nothing is disregarded as irrelevant, as He lavishes his sovereign love and irresistible grace upon us (1 John 3:1).

Seeking another’s will in preference to our own requires a Holy Spirit generated work within our hearts. So, we pray; “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”! (Psalms 139:23-24). Let our response mirror that of Thomas, who answered Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), as we acknowledge that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

I encourage you to live as those looking for God’s will to be done in your life, putting Jesus Christ first! Invite His Holy Spirit to inspire your spiritual motives, your aspirations, your passions, to embolden your faith, to enlarge your willingness for personal sacrifice, and empower your willingness to tell the lost of their only Saviour, Jesus Christ! For His glory alone!

I wish to encourage you to think clearly about Jesus Christ.

Most of us know the frustration of having someone wrongly comment on what they think you are like. We sometimes respond, “Well, you obviously don’t know me as well as you think.” Mankind is quick to spout off their opinions of God with fallible certainty, while God is probably saying, “Well, you obviously don’t know me.” So, how do we get to know God with the clarity and certainty that God would agree with?

The created universe screams at us of God’s “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they (mankind) are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). Complimenting creation’s voice, God, who still knows what He thinks, is able to communicate His truth with perfect clarity through His written Word, the Bible.

Although it makes sense to ask God directly, mankind typically looks to religion, philosophy, astrology, science, mythology, spiritualism, mysticism, and any number of other unrelated sources, for insights into who God is. God wrote the Bible for the specific purpose of allowing you to get to know Him directly. The prophet Ezekiel recorded the Lord saying to Israel approximately 70 times, “you shall know that I am the LORD”. God wants to be known! He has not hidden Himself.

God explains that “he has spoken to us by his Son (Jesus Christ), He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:2-3). So, if you genuinely want to know God, you seek the “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). The apostle John affirmed that Jesus Christ “has made him (God) known” (John 1:18).

Here’s the thing, by allowing voices other than God’s written Word to influence your view of Jesus Christ, you easily form a distorted view of God which results in a false sense of identity, both yours and Gods. You unavoidably conclude that Jesus Christ is less than holy God, and that man is more than sinfully independent of his creator. The Bible presents Jesus Christ in absolutes, in challenging words of truth that brings clarity, opening your heart and mind to His terms of restoration, spiritual regeneration, and the Christ centred relationship that He intends for you.

To be a Christian we must agree with God about who Jesus Christ is, agreeing that Jesus is “our great God and Saviour” (Titus 2:13). We must believe in (trust in, depend upon) Jesus who “was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25). Justification means we are acquitted from guilt, presented as right before God purely because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, which He did in our place. Jesus “bore our sins in his body” when He died on the cross (1 Peter 2:24). God the Father vented His full justice on His Son, punishing Jesus with our death penalty for our sin. To be a Christian we must love Jesus Christ as Lord (Master), which identifies the pretend from the genuine Christians. Jesus declared His Lordship over anyone who genuinely wants to believe in Him by saying; ”If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

I encourage you to ask yourself, “do I think clearly about Jesus Christ?” If you would like to read a more detailed explanation, you can download What is a Christian by clicking on this link.