Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” – Hebrews 4:15

It’s common when we’re going through hard times and hard temptations to think that nobody could ever possibly understand. Scripture says that isn’t true! There’s at least One who understands your weakness, your suffering, your temptation, your struggle…Jesus!

When God became flesh, Jesus personally came to know hardship and hunger, temptation and suffering, rejection and betrayal, humiliation and pain. He can sympathize with loneliness and isolation, sickness and grief, agony and death. Jesus understands!

Jesus understands what you’re going through. He understands your temptations and your trials. Moreover, He endured all things without sinning, not even once. Because He did, He was also able to endure the unfathomable wrath of God on our behalf, so that we don’t have to. Jesus understands us, but also demonstrates the power to rise above all those things we struggle with.

When we believe in Him, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us and give us His power to resist temptation, to rise above circumstance, and to glorify and serve God amidst suffering. Jesus understands and empowers us to become more like Him in our weakness. He understands, He sympathizes, and He empowers us to change in a way that transcends human frailty. Do you believe?

“I will restore to you the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
my great army, which I sent among you.”
– Joel 2:25

If you’ve endured long seasons of loss, grief, sorrow, and devastation, know that in Christ, God can provide peace, healing, and restoration that surpasses all understanding! God can bring miraculous healing to every hurt and restoration to every devastation. No, God won’t change your past (though He may well change your perspective on the agonies of the past). Nonetheless, God absolutely can and will change your future forever!

Through a rich and reconciled relationship with your Father in Heaven, God will fill your heart with peace, joy, satisfaction, purpose, and pleasure that transcends every earthly circumstance and lasts forever! Eternal life in Jesus Christ begins the moment you first believe in Him. From that moment onward, God invites you into the joyful and challenging adventure of following Jesus. It’s in that adventure that healing and restoration occur

Yes, this adventure brings change (to everyone on it) and no, it isn’t easy, stress-free, or guaranteed to bring pleasant circumstances on earth. However, the adventure of really pursuing an ever-deepening relationship with Christ produces a lasting joy that cannot be described! Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Indeed He did!

Jesus Christ is the source of abundant life and that life, which we’ll enjoy in His presence forever and ever is meant to be experienced and enjoyed today, tomorrow, and every day regardless of situation or circumstance. Such joy doesn’t come from what surrounds you, but from living in the loving embrace, leadership, and fellowship of Christ!

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” – Hebrews 3:13

As Christians, we’re called to get personal with one another. Real personal! We’re to be involved with and encouraging fellow believers toward Christ every single day. When we see a brother or sister in Christ falling into a particular sin, regardless of whether we or they think it’s big deal, we need to strongly encourage them to reject that pattern of sin.

The writer of Hebrews understands the tricky nature of sin. Whether it’s addiction, anger, sexual sin, greed, covetousness, violence, obscene talk, gossip, etc the pattern tends to be similar. Sin begins worming its way into our hearts and minds. At first we may not even it see it! When we do, we make little excuses about how it isn’t a big deal… how it doesn’t really hurt anyone… how it’s justified by our situation or circumstance…

Over time, our self-deceptive rationalization hardens into obstinacy and willful blindness. We refuse to see sin as sin and refuse to see it’s harm to ourselves and others. We insist that we need the sin or at least deserve it. We fight to keep it, including with those trying to help us.

The longer we wait to exhort one another away from sin, the harder it becomes to do so. This is the great value of lives lived close enough together and with enough honesty to be able to encourage and exhort one another daily away from sin and toward godliness. When we live such lives, we can begin to intercede in word and prayer when change is easiest and most painless. But first, we need to intentionally get that close to other believers. Are you?

“‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘therefore I will hope in him.’”
– Lamentations 3:24

The Book of Lamentations is exactly what its name says: it is the lament of Jeremiah as he witnesses the destruction of every earthly thing he knows and loves. His beloved Jerusalem is ruined. The people of his land have been carried away to exile. He himself is deeply unpopular with his own people because God has used him to prophesy terrible devastation. For Jeremiah, the situation is about as grim as it can be!

Nonetheless, Jeremiah knows he isn’t alone! He knows the Lord…and that’s enough! The Lord will never leave him or forsake him. Jeremiah knows he can find true and lasting satisfaction in God’s person and presence, regardless of his external circumstance. Jeremiah places all his hope and trust in God. His earthly circumstance seemingly couldn’t be worse, but He knows that God is trustworthy and sufficient for all he needs.

We too are invited to find true and lasting contentment in our relationship with the God of the Universe through faith in Jesus Christ. It doesn’t happen automatically. We can easily be Christians for years without rooting our joy and contentment in a vibrant relationship with God. We need to pursue God, nurturing our relationship with Him through regular and consistent prayer, worship, and meditation on Scripture. We too will likely experience unstable, ever-shifting, painful seasons in life. We too may lose everything we treasure on this earth. But we’re called to experience the deeper contentment that’s only available in Christ. Pursue that relationship every day! Put your hope in Jesus, not your earthly situation or circumstance!

“The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.” – Titus 3:8-9

Every Christian should carefully note what is and is not profitable for those who’ve been saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ…

Devoting ourselves to good works is excellent and profitable! Paul implores Titus to insist on this point with church congregations. Devote themselves… Christians should wholeheartedly invest their time, energy, money, emotions, thoughts, and passion into good works. Feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, providing clean drinking water, visiting the sick, encouraging the downtrodden, comforting mourners, defending the unborn, speaking up for the vulnerable, praying for those in need, offering the sure hope of Jesus Christ…

Getting involved in dumb arguments – amongst ourselves and with others – over trivial matters, controversies, disagreements, and quarrels is worthless and unprofitable. Christians today often flip Paul’s instructions on their head! Many love to get into endless debates and disputes about small things while failing to invest anything like that kind of energy into good works. Churches and fellowships are tearing themselves apart before our eyes, often over the very things Paul calls unprofitable and worthless.

Meanwhile, good works go undone. It’s not only unprofitable, it’s arguably Satanic! At a minimum, this utter reversal of plain biblical truth reflects a sorrowful reality that many in American Christianity today have fallen into the same Pharisaical patterns of majoring on minor things while missing the heart of God that Jesus explicitly condemned! Let us devote ourselves to good works and not foolish disputes with other believers!