Understanding the Mercy of God

One of the truly great attributes of God is his mercy.  To grasp the mercy of God we must understand the absolute holiness of God.  Consistently, the Bible testifies to the holiness of God as an essential element of his nature.  When Isaiah saw the Lord in his heavenly vision, the angels surrounding the throne did not declare the love of God but rather declared his holiness.  Holiness reflects a purity that has never been stained.  Holiness is complete and total righteousness.  Holiness is God.

The holiness of the creator creates a barrier between himself and his creation.  Creation is unholy.  All of creation is stained with sin and unrighteousness.  While I may not be as bad a person as someone else, in comparison to God I am unholy.  When placed against the standard of God's holiness Romans 3:23 becomes all the more accurate.  When it states that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory it gives testimony from the Holy Spirit of God against all of humanity. 

In Genesis, God begins a pattern of judgment upon sin.  We witness his judgment in expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden.  We see his judgment upon Cain for the murder of Abel.  His judgment is revealed in the flood.  We see God's judgment against sin throughout the Old Testament and we see his judgment on display in the New Testament as well.  We are promised that God will ultimately judge all of humanity for their sins because he is holy and he cannot and will not allow sin to go unpunished.

Now, here is the mercy of God on display.  God first displays his mercy by offering general grace to his creation.  God could wipe us all out with disasters, drought, and famine as a means of punishing us for our temporal sins.  At times God has done this in a local sense, but he could rightfully do this in a global sense as well.  Why?  No one is innocent of sin and thus deserve God's judgment.  However, he refrains from this judgment because of his mercy.

Secondly, God displays his mercy to us through Jesus Christ.  Since man was enslaved to sin and could not save himself from this slavery, God came forth in Jesus Christ to pay the price for our sin through his death.  Only the blood of a spotless and sinless sacrifice could atone for our sins and that is what God gave us in Jesus Christ.  2 Corinthians 5:21 testifies that it is through Jesus Christ we may become the righteousness of God.

God's mercy for us is best described as God not giving us what we deserve.  However, not only does He not give us what we deserve in his mercy.  He also provided what we needed in his mercy.  This week I want to challenge you to think about the penalty you have earned because of your sin and then offer thanks to God for the price he paid that your penalty might be covered by him.

God Bless

The Promise of God

I often hear people talk about the promise of God in the church today. They talk about claiming the promises, taking assurity from the promises, and celebrating the promises. However, I am not sure that we have not become like the Israelites of old. We often seek to claim the positive promises of God without condition and we seek to ignore the negative promises of God that we are much more likely to receive. One of the promises of God that I rarely hear anyone talk about is God's promise in Revelation 3:15-16. God promises the church in Laodicea that because they were neither cold nor hot he would vomit them from his mouth. The lukewarm church was an abomination to God and as a consequence he promised to spit them out. Does this not strike a holy fear into our hearts? As we look at the church in America today, can we not see the lukewarm nature of Laodicea within our fellowships? Can we not see this nature within ourselves? In this day when over a million souls enter eternity without Christ each time the sun sets, can we expect God to overlook our lukewarmness? With the unbridled access to the word of God that this country has afforded can we not expect God to hold us accountable for our unwillingness to know his word and believe it? I would beg you to allow God to search your heart and ask what we must do to be warmed by the fires of God to a rolling boil for him. Revelation 3 records God's promise to the church as well that if we will repent, return to holiness, and open the door of our hearts to the Lordship of Jesus Christ then he will come in and have fellowship with us. Brothers and sisters, how long has it been since we have had true fellowship with him? How long has it been since he has been invited into our hearts and our lives to be Lord once again? Today, I would invite you to believe the promise of God and to draw near to his heart that your life may be changed and that our churches may be revived. Claim this promise of God that if we will open the door of our hearts he will come in and we will never be the same.

The Absence of Prayer

The more I read and study about men who were gripped by God throughout histrory, the more I witness their undeniable reliance upon prayer.  Whether that man was Mueller, Taylor, Finney, Whitfield, or Wesley, the greatest characterisitic of their lives and their ministry was their prayers.  We have many who would lead today that can many things said about them, they are men of vision, men of accomplishment, and men of determination but can we call them men of prayer?  Prayer has been replaced in many of our pastorates by leadership books, strategies, and advertising.  While none of those things are bad, they are no substitute for prayer. 
Our lack of prayer today directly corresponds to our lack of power in our churches.  All the powers of the flesh and the forces of Hell are working to keep the souls of men enslaved to sin.  As a result, God has made his unlimited power available to us for the battle.  Yet we march forth defeated and dejected.  We make excuses and we soothe our conscience by changing the goals.  All in an effort to cover the fact that we have failed to pray.
Leonard Ravenhill stated "This generation of the church needs to pray more than any previous generation, but we probably pray less."  There is more truth in that one sentence than I have time to address, but the absence of prayer cannot be ignored.  We cannot achieve a spiritual result through planning and hard work.  Those are essential elements to the church for certain, but they are only effective once they have been empowered through prayer. 
The faithful Bible teacher John Fletcher would teach his students about the great doctrines of God and after lecturing for one hour would end his class with this statement: "That is the theory, now will the ones who want the practice come along to my room?"  The subsequent session would be spent in prayer for hours until every man had the full assurance of what he had been praying for.  When was the last time any of us spent three hours in prayer about anything?  Wesley prayed for a minimum of three hours a day for he understood that the work he undertook was too great to bear without the time in prayer.  When Wesley died he left behind six five pound notes, a set of silver spoons, and thousands of souls that had entered the kingdom through his ministry.  D.L. Moody prayed and then he worked.  The greatest testimony of Moody is made by one of his harshest critics who stated "The population of Hell has been decreased by at least a million souls because of D.L. Moody."
One may say that those things are fine but God does not move like that today.  I would counter that the Word of God declares that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  God's arm has not shortened nor has his strength weaked.  I would say that God is moving just like this all around the world where his people come to him and pray with a passion for his work, his will, and his way. 
Revival is burning across the plains of the Sudan, across the snows of the old Soviet Union, and among the mountains of South Korea.  Will you join them in prayer?  Will you seek the power that has been promised for salvation of souls?  Will you crave the filling of the Holy Spirit in your life?  Will you plead for the annointing of God upon your preaching and teaching?  Will you pray and not let go of God in prayer until he has let go of you?

Willing for Revival

I have been struggling with the matter of revival now for several months. I have prayed about it and I have studied it. I believe that our greatest need today is for the burning of revival fires. However, I am confronted time and again with whether or not I am truly willing to pay the price to experience revival. Charles Finney believed that revival was not a miracle of God. Rather revival was the result of meeting God according to the conditions he has defined and trusting in his providence to bring the revival he has promised. The more I look at the the Scriptures I find this to be true. When the people of God met the conditions for revival, then revival always came. When they determined that no matter what the cost they would walk in righteounsess with God and others, seek God in prayer and repentance, and surrender themselves absolutely and completely to his will and his way, then revival came. This was the promise God made to Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:14, this was the promise that was claimed by Jehosaphat in 2 Chronicles 20, and this was the promise displayed in the reign of Josiah in 2 Chronicles 34. Each time, as the people of God met the conditions of revival a mighty move of God came upon the people. I believe that if we were willing to meet these requirements today we would experience revival as well. However, I am not sure that we are willing to pay the price for revival. To experience revival today we must determine to live in a righteous way. That means we must be willing to mend our relationship with God and with one another. We must forgive and even more devestatingly, we must acknowlege our own failings, apologize, and ask for forgiveness of those we have offended. We must put aside gossip, backbiting, and slander. If we are unwilling to pay this price, then we are unwilling to experience revival. Secondly, we must be willing to seek the leadership of God in every area of our lives and we must repent of our sins. This means that we must turn aside from anything that we think, say, or do that displeases God. We must allow the Spirit of God to search our hearts and our lives to find any sins that we have hidden. We must confess those sins and put them aside. Not only must we turn from our sins, but we must allow God to lead us in our activity. We not only must avoid doing wrong things, but we must do right things as well as the Lord leads. Third, we must surrender completely. This is a great demand. To surrender requires us to give up control. This is to allow God to move as he sees fit and to work as he sees best without our obstruction. Without this surrender revival can never truly be unleashed in our lives. Stephen Olford defined revival as "Times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord." Revival must begin in the hearts of God's people. Revival is an encounter with God first and foremost that results in a lasting change. When we are brought back from the place of carnality and sin that so easily sets upon us, then true revival is taking place. When the world sees the presence of God on display, then the lost are drawn by the Spirit of God as he calls, convicts, and converts the lost in this time of refreshing. The question that we must ask ourselves is "Are we willing to pay the price for revival?" Is this what we are willing to do in order to see a move of God. If we are not, then we can be certain that revival will remain absent from our churches and our lives, but if we are then we can prepare to see God honor his word and unleash himself like we have never imagined. Are you willing?