Jim Wilson's Blog, page 24

Gracious Words

 

Several passages of Scripture have been in my meditation thelast few weeks.*

“For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Thegood man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil manbrings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that menwill have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word theyhave spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words youwill be condemned” (Matthew 12:34b-37).

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasonedwith salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6).

During the last few months,* I have been conscious that mywords have not been always gracious. Apparently, my heart has not been storedwith good things, or the overflow would have been gracious words. I haveconfessed and now want to store my heart so full of good that the overflow willbe always good.

 

*Written November 1988.

This post coordinates with today's reading in the Tothe Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan,please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Our Obedience & the Completed Work of Christ

 

"Since you died with Christ…” (Colossians 2:20).

"Since then you have been raised with Christ…"(Colossians 3:1).

"For you died…" (Colossians 3:3).

Although these sentences were written to the new church atColossae, we believe they apply to all Christians, if they are true. They areeither true or false. If true, they are past-tense certainties. They arenot future, or conditional, or perhaps or maybe. They describesomething that has already happened in us, and the commands that follow arepredicated on those certainties. If Christians have trouble with the commands,it may be because they have trouble believing that they have died with Christ,or it may be because they have not died with Christ. (In other words, they arenot Christians.) All future obedience is based upon the complete work of Christwhich has taken place in us. Read Romans 6 a few times.

 

Written January 1989.

This post coordinates with tomorrow's reading in the Tothe Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan,please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Holy in Christ

What wealth of meaning and blessingwhen the words are combined: holy in Christ. Here is God’s provision for ourholiness, God’s response to our question, “How can we be holy?” When we hearthe call, “Be ye holy, even as I am holy,” it seems as if there is, and evermust be, a great gulf between the holiness of God and man. But in Christis the bridge that spans the gulf—or better still—His fullness has filled itup.

In Christ God and man meet.There the holiness of God has found us and made us its own, has become humanand can indeed become our very own. To the anxious cries and the heart-yearningsof thousands of thirsty souls who have believed in Jesus and yet know not howto be holy, here is God’s answer: Ye are holy in Christ Jesus.Only listen to these words and believe. Repeat them, even a thousand limes, untilGod’s light shines, until your heart is filled with joy and love and the wordsecho back: Now I see it. I am holy in Christ—made holy in Christ Jesus!

- Andrew Murray, from The Believer’s Secret ofHoliness

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Christ or the World: Who Owns You?

This morning,* Bessie and I were reading John 15:15-21:

"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated mefirst. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is,you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That iswhy the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant isgreater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the onewho sent me.”

We were impressed again with the either/or of belonging toChrist or the world. And it is the world that recognizes the difference andtakes action. The question is, does the world recognize you as someone to love,or to hate?

*Written November 1987.

This post coordinates with today's reading in the Tothe Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan,please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

A Source of Life for Others

 

"On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stoodand said in a loud voice, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink’”(John 7:37).

"Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God andwho it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would havegiven you living water’ …. Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water willbe thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up toeternal life’” (John 4:10, 13-14)

This spring of water is an artesian well, a flowing well,“welling up to eternal life.” Welling up has a sense of leaping up.This well provides living water in quality and abundance so that streams ofliving water will flow from within the Christian. Notice in both texts that theperson does not drink from this well. He does not have the well until afterhe drinks. "Indeed the water I give him will become in him a spring...”"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink."

This well of the Holy Spirit flowing from us is not just forour benefit. Having drunk the living water that Jesus has given us, we nowbecome a source of living water for others.

Are you a flowing well of living water?

 

Written August 1993.

This post coordinates with tomorrow and Friday's readings in the SamePage Summer Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily readingplan, please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading withus.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Christ or Culture: Who Are You Following?

 

A few years ago, I was talking with a young woman, and Iasked her what she thought of Jesus. Her reply was a good answer but qualified withthis phrase: “but I don't think he was very polite.” The more I read theGospels, the more I am convinced her qualification is a true one. Her problemwas that, to her, politeness was a high virtue, and since Jesus was not polite,He was not perfect.

Many of us, like this young woman, interpret the Scripturein the light of our cultural mores. We do this because obedience to the textas it is might mean crossing or offending our Christian and secular friends. Inour society, we have compromised for so long we think we are following Christwhen in reality we are following the evangelical American culture.

This time, as you read through your New Testament, payattention to the hard sayings of Jesus. Here is a plan to follow for thesummer.

Written February 1987.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Same Page Summer

 

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching,rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God maybe thoroughly equipped for every good work. In the presence of God and ofChrist Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of hisappearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: preach the Word; be preparedin season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage, with great patienceand careful instruction” (2 Timothy 3:16-4:2).

"Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading ofScripture, to preaching and to teaching" (1 Timothy 4:13).

There was a time when there were very few Bibles, even in culturedlands. There were no printing presses, and most of the people were illiterate.If people received the Word, it was through the public reading of Scripture bypeople who could read and had the Scriptures. Now in the church today in this country,we can read, and we each own at least one Bible.

A year ago* at one of our schools of practical Christianity,we asked the students three questions: "How long have you been aChristian? How many times have you read the New Testament? How many times haveyou read the Old Testament?" When the answers were added, we found outthat the average reading of the New Testament was every 2 ½ years, and theaverage reading of the Old Testament was every 7 years.

This last weekend, I was at a men’s conference, and I askedthe same three questions. The total number of years of Christianity was 514.5years. The total number of times through the New Testament was 36 and throughthe Old Testament was 18. In other words, the New Testament was read every 14 yearsand the Old every 28 years. This amounts to spending less than 30 seconds aday in the Bible. This is not very encouraging.

Here is a plan we hope will encourage you to read theNew Testament. Even if you are a very slow reader, you can read the whole Biblethrough in 80 hours. If you are a listener instead of a reader, you can listento the whole Bible on an audio app. I listen in my car and enjoy it very much.

*Written May 1992.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

No Substitute for Bible Reading

In the last month,* I have been studying the New Testament,looking for teaching on salvation. I have been overwhelmed. It has caused me towonder why people in evangelism (including me) always use the same few texts.It has also convinced me even more of the necessity of the distribution of NewTestaments and Bibles. Evangelists and Bible teachers cannot possibly teacheverybody everything they ought to know, even with internet, radio, television,and books. Learning from a teacher should not be a substitute for readingand studying the Bible. Teaching should always include an incentive to readand study for yourself.

Here is a salvation text:

“This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed fromheaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who donot know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will bepunished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of theLord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified inhis holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed” (2 Thessalonians1:7-10).

If you are not in a daily Bible reading plan,please join us in reading the New Testament this summer. Find the plan and more details at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us!

 

*Written June 1991.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Finals - Failure or Success?

UGHH!! Here it is again, one of the most demanding times astudent at the university must face—final exams. Without fail, they arrivesooner than expected (or wanted), and unlike taxes, finals come at least two orthree times a year! It is a time that some find stimulating and rewarding, but forthe majority of students it is a time that they could do without. It is a time ofstress, lack of sleep, and headaches.

This is especially true if you are one of those who haven't beenpreparing all along for this week. You find yourself with projects due that youhaven't begun, books to read that are currently paperweights on your desk, and examsworth the majority of your grade, all staring you in the face. What do you do? Atthis point, you gut it out. Hopefully you will survive, and next time you willstart preparing right from the beginning.

Unfortunately, people often approach their lives in the samemanner that they do the university, waiting for the last minute to prepare forthe Final Exam—death, and then the judgement of God. Both are certain,"just as it is appointed for men to die once and after that comesjudgement."

Why judgement? It is because mankind has rebelled against God,going our own way and not loving God with all our heart. The Bible calls thissin and says that the result of sin is separation from God, resulting in death.This will become eternal on the day of judgement.

"Wait, I'm not so bad." The Bible says that"whoever keeps the whole law and yet fails at just one point is guilty of it all." If you have blown it once—lied,lusted, cheated, stolen—you're guilty. For example, if you have driven to workfor the last ten years and always stop at the stop sign near your home, you arelaw abiding. But suppose that one day you are late, so you roll through thesign, and a policeman catches you. Is he going to let you go because you havebeen “good” before? No! You are guilty and face the penalty.

The same holds true with God: "all have sinned and fallshort of the glory of God,” and “the wages of sin is death” (eternal separationfrom God).

What a dilemma. We are facing a final that requires a score of100% to pass, and we have already failed! What can be done?

The professor can take the test for us, and that is what Goddid.

God became a man, Jesus, and lived among us for thirty-threeyears showing us what God is like. He also came in order to die in our place,to take our penalty for us. This He did when He died on the cross, and “He diedfor sin, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring usto God." Then He was raised to show that the penalty has been paid in full—goodnews! Yet now you have the responsibility to respond to that good news.

"How do I respond?" First you must realize it is agift, something that you cannot earn, "for by grace you are savedthrough faith—and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works,so that no one can boast.”

Second, you must repent and believe in the gospel. To repentis to turn away from sin (living for yourself) and turn to God, to live as Hedeems fit. In essence, it is to stop trusting in yourself (your good deeds andhopes) to get you by and to start trusting in Jesus alone for your eternal life.Thus you must believe in the Gospel (which is that Jesus is God, that He diedfor your sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day) which means to put thewhole weight of your life and future in the hands of Jesus.

If this is your genuine desire, then honestly talk to God, thankHim for Jesus dying in your place and then raising Him from the dead. Tell Him thatyou want to, and will, turn from sin and that you want Jesus to be the Lord of yourlife. You are no longer separated from God because of sin and now have apersonal relationship with Him!

Like any other relationship, this one must be fostered andnurtured. Spend time with God in prayer, read the Bible, and meet with othertrue Christians.

You are now ready for the ultimate final exam!

 

 

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships

Promised Peace

Have you noticed the series of listed troubles that are in 2Corinthians? They are in chapters 1, 4, 6, 8, and 12. Have you also seen thecomfort, thanksgiving, glory, rejoicing, grace, and strength in the samechapters? Please take a look and notice the connection.

I will listen to what God the LORD will say;

He promises peace to his people,

His saints—but let them not return to folly.

(Psalm 85:8)

 

Written September 1992.

This post coordinates with Friday and Saturday's readings in the Tothe Word! Bible Reading Challenge. If you are not in a daily reading plan,please join us at TotheWord.com. We would love to have you reading with us.

How To Be Free From Bitterness and other essays on Christian relationships