Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

_Do not Mistake the True Meaning of the Cross
Apr 10th, 2020
Thought For The WeekA. W. Tozer
Categories: Commentary;Bible Salvation

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Galatians 6:14

ALL UNANNOUNCED AND MOSTLY UNDETECTED there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles.

It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial, the differences fundamental!

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life with encouragement for a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist tries to show that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. The modern view is that the new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him!

The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere, but it is as false as it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. In Roman times, the man who took up his cross and started down the road was not coming back. He was not going out to have his life redirected: he was going out to have it ended! The cross did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more!

The race of Adam is under death sentence. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. Thus God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life! -A. W. Tozer

The Believer Priest
Apr 10th, 2020
Looking into the WordArt Sadlier
Categories: Exhortation

Looking into the Word

Eli was called to be a priest, to serve God and to intercede for God’s people and to be a blessing to them. God blessed him as he began to exercise the office of the priesthood.

There is a parallel in this situation. Today the lord has an appointment for all those who are born again of His Spirit and are in Christ. That appointment is to the office of believer priest. We read in 1 Peter 2:5, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”

We see more about our calling in John 15: 16, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”

Eli failed miserably in his calling as a priest. He failed to keep his focus on God. His focus was misdirected to his sons. We read in verse 29, “And honourest thy sons above me.” Eli failed in his family life. Dad; get it right in the home.  If you fail in the home you will never realize the blessing God has ordained for you. You can’t serve God and ignore your calling as a father and husband.

Eli was serving God, or so he thought, while his sons were going to the devil. Verse 12, “Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD.” Eli was interceding for and teaching all of Israel and ignoring his two boys. He could have done both, the Lord would have enabled him, but his focus was wrong.

Eli waited until he was an old man and his boys were grown before he rebuked them, and then it was only a mild rebuke. Verse 23-24, “And he said unto them, Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the LORD's people to transgress.” The barn door was left open, and it was too late. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Pay someday; we see the Lord’s pay day for Eli, verse 30-31, “Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me forever: but now the LORD saith, Be it far from me; for them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house.”

We are reminded, that for the believer, there are rewards to be won and there are rewards to be lost. In 2 John 8, we read, “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.”

While Eli is failing, God is at work replacing Eli with Samuel, who will be a faithful witness. Verse 26, “And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favor both with the LORD, and also with men.” We see the same thing in the life of Saul, as the Lord replaced him with David. We see the great illustration, which is the replacement of the first Adam with the second Adam.

Let me give the challenge.  We read in 2 Chronicles 16:9, “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.....” Here is the challenge to my heart and to your heart. The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth, to find men and women, whom He can call out to glorify His name.

As His eyes fall on you, what does He see?

All Things, Whatsoever Ye Shall Ask in Prayer, Believing, Ye Shall Receive - Matthew 21:22
Apr 10th, 2020
Morning MeditationF.B. Meyer
Categories: Commentary;Inspirational;Book Study

This was a very remarkable answer; showing that the Lord, in His human life, was the Author and Finisher of the life of faith. He did not quote His Divine power and Godhead as the cause of the withering of the fig-tree; but proceeded to give a lesson on faith, as much as to say that He had wrought the miracle by faith in His Father, and that they could do as He had done, if only they had a similar faith.

Where we get wrong in prayer is that we are so self-willed. We set ourselves to pray for things; we vow to sit up all night to bring God round to our way of thinking; we use strong cryings, tears, and protestations; we endeavor to work ourselves into a frame of faith; we think we believe; we shut the doors of our heart against the tiniest suggestion or suspicion that we do not believe. And then we are surprised if the fig-tree does not wither, or the mountain remove.

Where are we wrong? It is not hard to see. There is too much of self and the energy of the flesh in all this. We can only believe for a thing when we are in such union with God that His thought and purpose can freely flow into us, suggesting what we should pray for, and leading us to that point in which there is a perfect sympathy and understanding between us and the Divine mind. Faith is always the product of such a frame as this. Be sure that you are on the line of God's purpose. Wait for Him till the impulses of nature have subsided, and the soul is hushed and still. Then the Spirit will lead you to ask what is in the will of God to give, and you will know instantly that the Spirit intercedes within you according to the will of God.