Posted on

There Is No God

I’ve called April 1 Atheists’ Day because Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 begin, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.'” But, not only atheists but backsliding Christians (2 Peter 2:20-21) and those who don’t seek God fall into the category of fool, according to the rest of this short psalm.

I. Romans 3:9-24. The application of Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 is made here. After describing how we are all alike under sin, this New Testament passage explains how God’s righteousness is made available through Jesus’ work on the cross for those who do seek Him.

II. Hebrews 10:26-31. As the wicked eat up the generation of the righteous, we understand that God gives salvation to all who call upon His name (Romans 10:9-13). Those who sin after the knowledge of the gospel will face judgment as they should know better.

III. Matthew 13:36-43. The last verse of these psalms proclaims that those who do seek God will find restoration, rejoicing, and gladness. Salvation came into Zion (John 12:13-15) and would indeed go forth from there (Acts 1:8). The righteous will shine like the sun.

By your living, do you say in your heart, ‘There is no God’?

Posted on

All That Is Written

While singing with kids, I’d sometimes ask why we used an open hands motion for “Bible” rather than a closed hands one?  Their honest answer was that we should be reading and living it.  Far too often there’s dust on our Bibles.  This was certainly true in Josiah’s time.

I. 2 Chronicles 34:1-13.  Was God’s Word missing or hidden?  After all, for the previous six decades, God’s people had endured Manasseh’s 55-year and then Amon’s 2-year idolatrous reigns.  Would the 8-year old Josiah be any different.  Then, we’re told that at 16 he began to seek God.  At 20 he enacted reforms and at 26 repairs to the temple.  That’s when God’s Word was brought out.

II. 2 Chronicles 34:14-21.  The priest Hilkiah “found” it who gave it to the secretary Shaphan to read to the king who seemed to have a different spirit than what the nation had known.  Josiah’s reaction was to tear his clothes and to take action.  From his repentance, he asked that God be sought and laid their struggles upon their not doing “all that is written in this book.”

III. Psalm 1:1-3.  The same restoration spirit is needed today.  Rather than one copy collecting dust, we live in a time where we are surrounded by physical and digital copies of God’s Word, yet ours have just as much dust upon them.  We need to recognize its usefulness in equipping us (2 Timothy 3:16-17), tear our clothes figuratively and take similar literal actions like Josiah did.

The decision starts with yourself to blow the dust off your Bible and devote yourself to its instruction and rebuke.  Then we will see changes happen in our families and in the Lord’s church.

Posted on

Our God, He Is Alive

Because it acts like He is dead or never existed, the world tells us that everything we see exists by accident or macro-evolution.  But, no matter how smart or advanced man thinks he has become, he cannot explain how something came from nothing, complexity evolved from chaos, how life arose from non-life, or how morality developed from instinct.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:19-22).

Rather, because “Our God, He Is Alive,” God is able to help us in many ways here and in eternity.

I.  John 1:1-3.  In the first and second stanzas of the song, God is able to help us as our Creator (Isaiah 40:28-31) and Communicator (2 Timothy 3:16-17):

There is, beyond the azure blue, A God, concealed from human sight, He tinted skies with heav’nly hue And framed the worlds with His great might.

There was, a long, long time ago, A God the prophets heard, He is the God that we should know, Who speaks from His inspired Word.

II. Colossians 1:15-20.  The third stanza shows God as Omnipotent (1 Corinthians 1:21-25) and Omniscient (Isaiah 55:8-9, Matthew 7:7-8):

Secure, is life from mortal mind, God holds the germ within His hand, Tho’ men may search, they cannot find, For God alone does understand.

III.  John 8:34-36.  The fourth stanza explains that because Jesus was our Sacrifice, He can also be our Savior (Romans 3:21-26):

Our God, whose Son upon a tree, A life was willing there to give, That He from sin might set man free, And evermore with Him could live.

Because we know that we serve a risen Savior, we see how He continues to help us in our daily walk with Him and prepares us for eternity, so we can declare to an unbelieving world that …

There is a God, He is alive, in Him we live, and we survive; From dust our God created man, He is our God, the great I AM.

Posted on

Sought Him with Their Whole Desire

After the moral decline of Solomon’s reign and Reheboam’s unwise decision that split God’s people, his grandson, Asa, made a courageous move to rid Judah of its idolatry and return them to God (2 Chronicles 14).  What will God do for His people when a good leader gets those in his sphere of influence to seek Him with their whole desire?

I. 2 Chronicles 15:1-15.  Asa was given an ‘if’ by God, but unlike Solomon (1 Kings 3:14), Jeroboam (1 Kings 11:38), and Reheboam (1 Kings 12:7), he rose to the challenge.  He entered into a covenant with the people he led to seek God with their whole desire, and because they did, God gave them rest, peace, and possession of the land.

II. Hebrews 13:7-17.  We are to examine our leaders and imitate their faith.  This would include Jesus, who suffered–meaning that we may need to suffer as well.  Knowing their difficult position, we should make their job easier by obeying them.  Jesus seeks us (Luke 19:10).  But, do we want to be found (Luke 15:4-5)?  We must also seek God (Matthew 7:7-8), who promises that we will find Him.  Yet, we all are leaders in our sphere of influence (Matthew 25:20-27).  Let us love God fully (Luke 10:25-28), seeking Him with our whole desire.

III. Ephesians 6:10-13.  To seek God with our whole desire and get others to do so as well, we must take a stand by donning the armor of God.  At the time of captivity, God searched for someone who would stand in the breach but found none (Ezekiel 22:30).  God needs good leaders like Asa who will help a whole generation find Him.  The church is not a club that does some good in the world.  It is the spiritual vehicle to lead us to eternity (Hebrews 12:22-29).  It is where we seek Him with our whole desire here, to spend eternity with Him there.

Are you seeking Him with your whole desire?

Posted on

Ask What I Shall Give You

Is it better to “grow up in the church” or to escape the world to seek truth on your own?  The first may not know the sharp edge of the world’s heartache, but often a personal faith is taken for granted and underdeveloped.  The second can create an abiding faith but a lifetime of overcoming sinful habits and baggage.  Inheriting the kingdom from his father, Solomon began well as someone who grew up in the church often does.  But, did he seek God or let his heart be led astray?

I.  1 Kings 3:3-28.  In the beginning of his reign, Solomon loved God and walked in the way of his father, King David, yet as he still worshipped at the high places, there’s a hint that his heart wasn’t fully after God’s heart like David’s was (Acts 13:22).  He asks for wisdom or discernment to govern God’s people, which pleased God, and he was granted many other blessings.  What can an abundance of God’s grace do in a heart, vulnerable to temptation and sin, that is not fully chasing God?

II.  2 Samuel 12:7-9.  When David had yielded to sin, the prophet Nathan tells him that God had given him much and would have given him much more, but David had repaid God’s grace by despising God’s Word.  This principle is carried out in the New Testament by Jesus (Matthew 25:29).  We must prove faithful in what we have been entrusted, so that God can use us in even bigger ways.  Sadly, Solomon did not do this, allowing his blessings, projects, and power (2 Chronicles 1:14-17) and the comfort found in sin (1 Kings 11:1-4) lead his heart astray.  Clearly, the wisdom he had to warn against such falling (Proverbs 5:1-9) wasn’t enough to safeguard his heart.

III.  Philippians 4:4-7.  If we seek God and His Kingdom first (Matthew 6:33) and ask for wisdom (James 1:5-8), we must still apply these things to our hearts to truly live for Christ and honor Him as holy (1 Peter 3:13-16).  How do we do this?  We must sell all that this world has to offer (Matthew 13:44) and press on to the goal despite obstacles (Philippians 3:12-16), holding on to what we have already obtained and adding to that in increasing measure (2 Peter 1:3-11).  Then God will guard our hearts.

What could Solomon have achieved if he hadn’t let his heart be led astray?  How could God use you if you used what you’ve already been entrusted with to seek Him and His Kingdom?

Posted on

The Father is Seeking Such People

The Japanese art of kintsugi or ‘golden repair’ mends broken pottery with gold, silver, or platinum, and in the end, makes the piece worth more than it originally did.  While all we see are the ways in which we have been broken by sin, God, who loves us unconditionally, sees our great value to Him.  We are to return that love in kind through true worship.

I.  Romans 8:28-39.  The body is loved by the Bridegroom.  Academically, we don’t doubt His love for us (Romans 5:6-8), we claim.  We just doubt our worth.  But, many know that a parent’s love for a child doesn’t make the value of that child go up or down depending on the child’s behavior.  So, God loves us greatly and assigns us infinite value–so much that He gave us His Son.

II.  John 4:23-26.  The Bridegroom is seeking true worshipers.  When two single people are attracted to one another, they seek each other with a desperation, hoping that he or she is the one to marry.  So, even though God loves all He has made, He is seeking ‘true worshipers,’ those who will be part of His bride, the church, and will love Him back (in spirit and truth).  That manifests itself in repentance (Luke 15:4-21) as He mends us back together in kintsugi-like fashion to make us more valuable to Him than we were before.

III.  Revelation 19:7-9.  The bride makes herself ready, her fine linen the righteous acts of the saints.  This is the true worship she engages in–that which is in spirit and truth.  So many today have the zeal for God without right doctrine.  They are like blindfolded dart players, rarely hitting the target.  Like the five virgins who had forgotten to buy oil for their lamps, they eagerly await the Bridegroom in vain (Matthew 25:1-13).  We must return His seeking of us with true worship that combines both.

Any relationship is two-sided.  We deceive ourselves if we believe God will seek us if we aren’t seeking Him in return.  We must return His love with true worship.

Posted on

For These I Seek You

To know and love, to be accepted
For who I am; to put rejection
Far away; for transformation —
A new soul and heart and mind:
For these I seek you, Lord, humbly,
Thirsty on the desert sand.