The Christian Worker’s Magazine tells
about a young man who decided to grow peaches. He went all out, investing everything
he had to develop an orchard. But disaster struck one spring when a heavy frost
wiped out most of the peach blossoms. When Sunday came, he wasn’t in church.
The next week he was absent again. And the same thing was true the following
Lord’s day. His pastor became concerned and went to visit him. The young man
exclaimed, “I am not going to church anymore! Do you think I can worship a God
who cares so little for me that He will let a frost kill all my peaches?”
The pastor replied, “God loves you better
than He does for your peaches. He knows that while peaches do better without
frosts, it is impossible to grow the best men without frosts. God’s objective
is to grow men—not peaches. God chastens His children because He loves them.
Reproof is one proof of God’s love (Anonymous).
SAVED AND
KEPT BY GRACE
We cannot earn new life in heaven by works or human
worth; it is trusting Christ and what he did that brings to us, new birth.
We are saved by God’s mercy, not by
our merit—By Christ’s dying, not by our doing.
DEATH’S
INTRUSION (JOB 38:17)
Life indeed is fragile, and death has
a way of intruding when least expected, at the most untimely, unsuitable, and
unsettling times.
The answer to the question put to Job,
“Have the gates of death been shown to you?” had to wait the triumphant resurrection
of Christ. He answered the question for all of us. “I am the resurrection and
the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever
lives and believes in Me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
TEMPTATION
Along life’s road are obstacles. Our
choice becomes a test; help us, O Lord, to know Your way that we may choose
what is best. Every Temptation is an occasion to trust God (Our Daily Bread, April 1, 1993).
DEPRESSION
When the devil would oppress you
bringing doubt and anxious care, God’s strong arm can lift and save you from
depression’s subtle snare. The devil can’t keep you down if you let the Lord
lift you up (Our Daily Bread, June
20, 1991).
THE FATE OF
THE WICKED
Verse 5 and 6 of Psalm 11 contrast God’s
dealings with believers, “the righteous,” and unbelievers, “the wicked.” It
should encourage the saved and frighten the unsaved.
Notice:
For
the Righteous For the
Wicked
Trial
Judgment
Benefit
Loss
Temporary
Pain
Lasting torment
Spiritual
growth
Destruction
Two
classes of people:
Those who are the Lord’s, and those who are not His
(Psalm of Victory)
THE
CHRISTIAN'S RELATIONSHIP TO GOD
Now that God has acted in His love to turn aside His
anger, we have been justified by Him, redeemed for Him and reconciled to Him.
And our reconciliation includes the concepts of“ access’ and ‘nearness,’ which
are aspects of our dynamic knowledge of God or eternal life (John 17:3).
1.
Boldness—“parresia,” which means outspokenness,
frankness,
plainness
of speech both in our witness to the world and in our prayers to God. Through Christ, we are now able to approach God with freedom and confidence. This freedom of
access and this outspokenness of address to God in prayer are not incompatible
with humility, for they are due entirely to Christ’s merit, not ours. His blood
has cleansed our conscience in a way that was impossible in the Old Testament
days, and God has promised to remember our sins no more. So now we look to the
future with assurance, not fear (Eph. 3:12; Heb. 4:16; 10:16).
2.
Love—We love
because He first loved us. Previously we were
afraid
of Him but now love has driven out fear (1 John 4:18-19; 2 Cor. 5:14-15).
3.
Joy---The
return of the exiles from Babylonia to Jerusalem. Their
mouths
were filled with laughter and their tongues with songs of joy.
That is exactly what God has done for
us through His Son and our Lord Jesus Christ.
