“Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?’” – Zechariah 3:1-2

Satan lives to accuse the faithful. He accuses us of sin, of failure, of guilt, of shame. He says we’re unacceptable, unlovable, unworthy, and irredeemable. He’s a liar!

Everyone who entrusts their life to Jesus as Lord is washed completely clean. His blood that was shed on the cross cleanses us from all sin. His presence in us is proof that we’ve been made acceptable by God’s grace. Better than that, we’ve been adopted as God’s beloved children. Our guilt and shame are completely gone. The worthiness of Jesus Christ has become our worthiness and His coming into the world, His life, His death, and His resurrection are all the proof required to know that we are loved.

God doesn’t hear the accusations of Satan against His people. Those lies never even reach God’s ears thanks to Jesus! Which leaves Satan only one alternative… He whispers his accusations into our ears instead. Whenever you have the thought, as a child of God, that you’re unworthy, unlovable, shameful, and irredeemable, realize that’s Satan doing his thing. Lying to you. Reject his lies just as firmly as God rejected his lies in these verses!

God loves you so much He sent His Son for you. Jesus loves you so much He died for you. The Holy Spirit loves you so much that He lives within you. If Jesus is your Lord, you ARE clean. You ARE loved. You ARE worthy. Reject the devil and #FollowJesus!

“Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.” – Haggai 1:5-6

Have you ever been through a season like God describes in these verses? One in which nothing ever quite works out? One where you’re working hard but never really getting ahead? Where you have things but they don’t satisfy your desire for even more? Whenever you find yourself in such a season, it’s definitely worthwhile to do what the Lord commands here: consider your ways.

The reason the ancient Israelites were in a prolonged season of “meh” was that they had their priorities backwards. They were living for themselves while promising to eventually work on God’s priorities with their leftover time, energy, and treasure. As is usually true, their leftovers were crumbs at best. God doesn’t deserve our crumbs, He deserves our best!

When we don’t make our Lord our top priority, He will sometimes frustrate our other priorities to get us back on track spiritually. God promises throughout the Bible that when we make His priorities our priorities, He’ll take care of the rest. When He’s our top priority, our passion and hunger for Him and His work grows and finds satisfaction in Him. Meanwhile, our passion and hunger for earthly things diminishes and is also satisfied through Him. That’s the promise Jesus made in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

To be clear, not every season in the desert of “meh” is caused by having wrong priorities. What Haggai told the people of Israel was specific to their situation. However, quite often in our modern American life we make the same mistake they did and reap the same results. We work hard for ourselves and make little progress. We do little for the Lord and find ourselves distant from Him and cold toward Him. It can happen to anyone. So, whenever you find yourself with that “meh” feeling, remember to consider your ways… and #FollowJesus

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.”
– Psalm 139:1-2

Consider two things about these verses… First, they’re true! God knows you more completely than you know yourself. He knows every action you take AND every thought you think. ALL OF THEM! God hears the thoughts and conversations of your inner mind. He understands your motives for doing things better than you do. He knows your personal mix of selflessness, love, kindness, generosity, comfort, pride, selfishness, need for attention, guilt, fear, insecurity, and shame at any given moment. He knows why you do the very best things you do and the very worst things you do. He sees all that is good, bad, selfless, selfish, holy, and profane about you.

Second, He loves you anyway! Romans 5:8 proclaims, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Despite that swirl of good, bad, and indifferent in your heart and mind, God took the initiative to restore you to His love. He sent His Son into this world to die as an atoning sacrifice for your sin. Jesus took all the punishment that a just and righteous God should rightly give you in light of everything He knows about you. There is no wrath, punishment, or condemnation left for you if Jesus is your Lord. Thank you Jesus!

Nobody has ever loved you as fully, completely, and sacrificially as God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit! You are perfectly known and perfectly loved in Christ. There is nothing you need to do to earn, rebuild, or increase God’s love for you. All that was already done for you by Jesus on the cross. You simply need to repent of your sins and believe in Him to receive God’s gracious gift of unending love you don’t deserve. Believe, receive God’s love, rejoice in it, and then take up your cross today and #FollowJesus!

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” – 1 John 4:10

Our culture has come to have a pathetically shallow, limited, inadequate, and degraded definition of love. We’ve let love be redefined by Hollywood movies, steamy novels, and sinful cultural norms. Love isn’t a rush of feeling, quickly ignited and ultimately disappearing like a mist over time. Love isn’t about raging hormones and the fulfillment of our lusts and desires. True love doesn’t start with us. It starts with God.

True love flows from God but it isn’t what we’ve come to think of as love. True love is far greater! God revealed what true love is when He responded to our hateful rebellion and scorn for Him by sending His precious Son, Jesus, into the world to pay the penalty for our sins. True love is rooted in God’s essential nature. It’s sacrificial. It’s gracious. It’s merciful. It seeks to elevate the recipient.

True love is more deeply and eternally satisfying than our culture’s parody of love but true love is costly. It sees the best in others even when they’re at their worst. It meets them where they are but doesn’t endorse or celebrate their situation or seek to leave them there. True love brings healing and transformation, not in order to receive it but because it has been received. True love isn’t about what’s in it for us. It requires us to be vulnerable in order to bless and heal the broken soul of the other person. That’s real love! #FollowJesus

“And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” – 1 John 4:3

Many Christians are interested in teachings and speculations about “the” Antichrist (singular, with a capital “A”). Certainly, that is good to understand. But don’t lose sight of an important truth that John emphasizes repeatedly throughout this letter… The spirit of antichrist has already been at work in our world for twenty centuries! The spirit of the antichrist is at work right now, so pay attention to protect yourself from being deceived!

The spirit of antichrist is the spirit that teaches falsely about Jesus Christ while claiming to be spiritual. This spirit denies essential truths about Jesus (His divinity, His humanity, His Sonship, His sacrificial death, His resurrection, etc.) The spirit of antichrist distracts and deceives those who would follow Jesus, getting them focused on worldly things like political power, financial gain, social status, comfort, and entertainment rather than the hard work of taking up their cross every day to follow Jesus.

The spirit of antichrist is at work in churches that point believers away from gritty, Spirit-filled, disciple-making obedience to Jesus. It’s at work in influencers, evangelists, “prophets”, “apostles”, and preachers who promote false gospels of health and wealth. The spirit of antichrist is at work in theologians, pastors, and scholars who teach falsely about Jesus while making excuses to indulge your flesh in sin forbidden by God’s Word. Don’t be so concerned about “The Antichrist” that you fall under the growing influence of the spirit of antichrist that’s powerfully at work in our culture today! #FollowJesus