Meditation

02/27/2020

“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hie your ace from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinner swill turn back to you.” (Psalm51:7-13)

Evangelists are forgiven sinners. We confess our sins, before witnessing to others. Because we have been forgiven, gratitude and love fill our lives.

The love of God flows through us to others. We show them they are sinners and can find the forgiveness God has given us. Evangelism is a forgiven sinner leading another sinner to God for forgiveness and salvation.

PRAYER FOR THE DAY:

Precious Abba, as You well know, we human beings tend to make things harder than it really is, to find forgiveness and salvation. In truth, You have long ago provided the pathway, and it is simple, hard, but simple. We must confess our sins and be honest about it; we must then witness to others our sins; we must open our hearts to You and seek You to restore to us the joy of the salvation that you offer us; finally, we must then have a willing heart to help others to find the same relationship with You that we have had restored for us, by You. All this we pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

“A holy person does not serve out of obedience; rather we serve out of passion to share the message of salvation with all that we encounter.”

KNOWING GOD:

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” (2^nd Corinthians4:14-15)

Jesus died for the salvation of all. Believers receive that salvation and forsake self-centered living for Christ-centered living. Christ’s death on the cross was as a representative of the human race. God made Him a sin offering for us that we might live for Him and not for ourselves. Atonement is potentially universal, available to all people. It becomes an active reality only in the lives of those who commit themselves to Christ. Finally, love for the lost compels us to share Christ with them. Christians love the lost because they are in great need; they are without God; they will spend eternity in hell. We lovingly move them to Jesus, their only hope. There is also an intangible involved. We still remember what it was like to be lost ourselves. You look at people and you can see it on their faces and the way they go about their lives. No one honestly, wants to see another person go through the struggles, that we have been through and one day someone told us about their own story. I would love to say that accepting Christ as your Savior will take away all heartache and problems, but that would not be true. However, it is our relationship with Christ and other Christians, that sustains our walk daily. This is what we seek to share with others, more than anything else.

I AM:

“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes for God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” (Romans10:1-4)

Righteousness does not come by human actions in following commandments, whether human human or divine. Righteousness comes from God Himself. We experience righteousness by a faith relationship to God through Jesus Christ. God’s righteousness, then, is the source and cause of any righteousness in people. Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses. In Him the law reached its goal. He has thus opened the way to God through trust in Him rather than through observance of legal requirements.

Second Thought of the Day:

“I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race.” (Romans9:1-3)

As we all know, Paul have been taught well by one of the best teachers of the Law. He grew up to be a zealot for the Law. He openly admitted to his misunderstanding of Christ as God’s righteousness. However, when confront by Christ on the road to Damascus by Christ, his own conversion began and his understanding of who Christ truly was began to grow. He did not lose his understand of the Law; rather, Paul went from being a zealot Jew to a zealot Christian. In short, he took everything he already knew and added Christ to his knowledge and found truth beyond what he had known or been taught up to that point of his life.

Paul was so burdened for the conversion of the Jewish people that he was willing to be separated from Christ if that would in some way effect their salvation. That is like the spirit of Moses (Exodus 32:31-32). That is love—love so deep it brings sorrow and anguish. Such love motivates to effective evangelism (2^nd Corinthians 5:14-21).