John 10:28-30
²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.”

As someone who has been a Christian for a while, it’s easy to forget some of the most basic truths about my condition. It’s a beautiful reality that I have been given eternal life and that I will never perish. Additionally, I’m secure in the hands of God—He won’t let anything “snatch me out of [his] hand.”

Surely God loves us and surely he has blessed us greatly! Be thankful.

²³Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.
²⁴Put away from you crooked speech,
and put devious talk far from you.
²⁵Let your eyes look directly forward,
and your gaze be straight before you.
²⁶Ponder the path of your feet;
then all your ways will be sure.
²⁷Do not swerve to the right or to the left;
turn your foot away from evil.

Psalm 91

¹ Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
² This I declare about the Lord:
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him.
³ For he will rescue you from every trap
and protect you from deadly disease.
⁴ He will cover you with his feathers.
He will shelter you with his wings.
His faithful promises are your armor and protection.
⁵ Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,
nor the arrow that flies in the day.
⁶ Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,
nor the disaster that strikes at midday.
⁷ Though a thousand fall at your side,
though ten thousand are dying around you,
these evils will not touch you.
⁸ Just open your eyes,
and see how the wicked are punished.

⁹ If you make the Lord your refuge,
if you make the Most High your shelter,
¹⁰ no evil will conquer you;
no plague will come near your home.
¹¹ For he will order his angels
to protect you wherever you go.
¹² They will hold you up with their hands
so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.
¹³ You will trample upon lions and cobras;
you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet!

¹⁴ The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me.
I will protect those who trust in my name.
¹⁵ When they call on me, I will answer;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue and honor them.
16 I will reward them with a long life
and give them my salvation.”

“⁵ Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
⁶ The LORD preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
⁷ Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.”

Let me just say that I love this passage. For me, so much of the time, I find myself really fighting to find joy in the Lord and rest in Him. It is always because I forget who God is, I forget who I am, and I forget, therefore, what my fitting response to these truths should be. This verse concisely points me toward the truth regarding those three areas.

1.) About God: Verse 5 reminds me that God is gracious: He shows me favor when I don’t deserve it; that God is righteous: He’s not going to harm me or try to abuse me somehow; and that God is merciful: He spares me the punishment that I deserve for falling short of his standard (Romans 3:22-24).

2.) About me: Verse 6 reminds me that God has preserved me and that he saved me. I know that I am not right on my own apart from Jesus Christ. This reminder is helpful for when I’m feeling proud or when I think I have it together. God saved me and I am therefore indebted to him–but it’s debt of gratitude. I can’t every begin, even, to pay it back.

3.) Response: The last verse is so beautiful to me because it shows us the fitting response to these truths. By nature I am a person who worries, so that makes this is even more helpful for me. This verse clearly reminds us to stop and rest in the Lord because he has shown us so much favor that we don’t have anything left to be concerned with. He has dealt very bountifully with me! The salvation of my soul, of course, being the most generous gift He could have ever given, but that’s really only the beginning of the blessings He’s shown.

Love the Lord today!

1 John 4:10

As a Christian, a few things in my thinking have been completely changed. One of the most prominent is that I have come to believe the simple truth that in all things there is meaning. Read a Psalm like 33, and it becomes overwhelmingly clear and God is ruler of all things. All things are, ultimately, in submission to Him. The Bible also makes very clear that God is loving. If these two things are true—that God is loving and powerful—there has to be meaning in everything. In His love, he couldn’t let random bad stuff happen; he couldn’t let random meaningless stuff to happen. It wouldn’t be loving. Now, there are bad things that happen and there are things that seem meaningless, but, the reality is that God works good out of all things—the “bad” and meaningless included (Rom 8:28).

Beyond being able to have this confidence that things have meaning, as a Christian, also, I have come to accept my God-given purpose here on the Earth. Jesus, before he ascended into heaven, commanded his followers to tell everyone in the world the truth that they could be forgiven of their sins if they would turn to Jesus and accept his forgiveness, not relying on their own works for salvation, but rather on the simple mercy of God.

This calling to spread good news that people can be saved is a very high one. It matters on Earth but it matters for all of eternity, as well. No job, mission, or cause other than this one has any effect after this existence. They are all foolishness when put up against eternity.

To me, having a mission that does matter beyond my own life and into eternity is thrilling. I can get up on a rainy day and go to a job that isn’t always super exciting and still be filled with joy and purpose knowing that I am living for something that truly matters.

1 Peter 1:13 says, “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

There is hope and there is purpose in life because Jesus Christ will come back and save those who are trusting in Him.

In context:

7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

The context is that we absolutely always will reap what we sow! If we live sinful lives, we’ll reap the consequences of it. If we live righteous lives to please our God who’s saved us, we’ll reap life from it. This can be hard to hear if we’ve been living wrongly, but if we’ve been living righteously it’s hugely encouraging. We WILL REAP good things from the righteousness we’ve lived out. Because of this, we don’t have to get discouraged as we serve the Lord because we can be confident that we’ll be rewarded appropriately for our labors.

Praise the Lord today and serve him knowing that it will be worth it. I love you, even it I may not know you!

Peace to you.

Everything we desire and all the needs of our soul can be found in God. This seems to challenge everything this world tells us, but to those who pursue this truth will discover how much of a reality it is.

I love the Lord because slowly I’m understanding this and it has been filling me more and more with Joy in Him.

“For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” (1 Thes. 2:3-8, ESV)

The things I thought were really cool are how, first, any appeal made to people for God should always only come out of love for God and a desire to please Him. It’s easy for me to get the focus on myself and end up “serving God” in a really self-serving way. That’s wrong.

Secondly, it is never okay to use any sort of deceit or trickery to convince people of the truth, nor is it okay to have ulterior motives in trying to communicate it. The gospel is powerful enough on it’s own, God’s spirit is powerful enough to communicate it without us twisting it.

Finally, the thing that is going to work in helping people understand God’s love, is simply being motivated by it ourselves. We need to be willing to, as the verse says, share the Gospel and even our entire lives with people so that they can know the love of Christ.

This maybe kind of an odd passage, but it’s my VOD because I really like the heart behind it.

David realizes here that an offering to God (The Almighty!) is worthless if it doesn’t cost. This was pretty convicting to me as I read it. Being human, I am lazy; being raised to be sort of intellectual, I try to live lazily by outwitting my circumstances. By this I mean, I like to find ways to get the greatest returns for the least amount of effort. This can be good in business and other areas of life. It doesn’t, I don’t believe, transfer into serving God.

Here’s why: God looks at our hearts. If our hearts are unwilling to exert effort to worship Him, God’s not going to be pleased with our lives. Of course it’s not wrong to try to be efficient, but when our efforts to be efficient are only to appease our laziness, then there’s a problem.

For me this has been a tough realization because my laziness is so ingrained into me. Change will require God’s grace. That’s the point, though, I think.

(This verse goes well with the one above. I didn’t know where to include it, though, so here it is: Romans 12:1 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship[reasonable service].”)