Author: Nick

If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell —Matthew 5:30 Is there something in your life, that appears harmless, yet continues to lead you into sin? Maybe it’s your television habit, or a “friend” or a “watering hole” on your way home.  Then, would it not be better to remove this from your life. Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that “if your right hand causes you to sin” in your walk with Him, then it is better to “cut it off.” There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then “cut it off.” The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind. Lord, grant us a dedication to You and Your purposes that will motivate us to clean our […]

I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me —Philippians 3:12 Perhaps you have know folks like my old friend. I remember him as a great dreamer. Every time I would see him, he would have grand plans. He never accomplished any of them. Some of us are “What Might Have Been” types. We consider that our best day are past and we will never do anything great. Others of us are “My Day will come” types. We believe that someday; we will do something great. We are only given today. Yesterday Pastor Kerry focused on this verse: 1 Chronicles 28:20 David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished.  I like this modern translation: 20-21 David continued to address Solomon: “Take charge! Take heart! Don’t be anxious or get discouraged. God, my God, is with you in this; he won’t walk off and […]

. . . I am with you to deliver you,’ says the Lord —Jeremiah 1:8 We have a mission to complete for our Lord. Like any good boss, God frees us from other distractions so that we can properly focus on His work. This is his promise to deliver us. This is the peace which surpasses all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ. We must take advantage of this deliverance to do what are called to do. God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally— “. . . your life shall be as a prize to you . . .” (Jeremiah 39:18  ). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. A large portion of our deliverance is that our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress.If we don’t have the right attitude about the “things” which we are given, they enslave us rather than bless us. We are also called to be free from demands for our “rights.” […]

We . . . plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain —2 Corinthians 6:1 Our outreach team leaves tomorrow for Guatemala. Please have them in prayer. Let’s pray they will learn anew to draw freely on the grace of God this week. We have a constantly available source of power and support and we seldom use it. It is the grace of our Lord. Grace is more than forgiveness of sin. It is power to live today. The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed. Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you— it is taking the grace of God now.  Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Draw on His grace now, not later. The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now.  Lord, bless and protect our team headed out tomorrow. Surround them with your angels and teach them by drawing them closer to you than ever before. […]

. . . what shall I say? ’Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ’Father, glorify Your name’ —John 12:27-28 We ask God to “make us, mold us.” He does so in the fires of sorrow. We should not seek to avoid sorrow, but seek the protection of our Savior in sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them. If we honestly trace our spiritual growth, we find the periods of true growth were periods of sorrow. When times are good, we assume they are so because of something we did. When times are ordinary, we do not see the forming hand of God at work. Oh Lord, we know in our life there will be sorrow. Bless us with the knowledge of your active […]

This is your hour, and the power of darkness —Luke 22:53 Once, years ago, I travelled to Jakarta, Indonesia, on business. I have at no other time felt such a sense of the existence of pure evil. I have felt it other times, in fact, often, but never like that. You don’t have to live too long in this world  or watch much tv to come to the conclusion that there are dark forces out there. We have to be careful not to give those forces too much credit but it would be foolish not to acknowledge they exist and have some affect. Failing to make that recognition and calling it what it is: sin. Is the cause of disaster. If we call it just “the devil” then we fail to recognize the personal nature of it and the possibility of it having affect in our lives. Not recognizing it in others can cause us to make disastrous mistakes in our personal relationships.  If we reconcile to the fact of sin, we can see sin and call it what it is. We can separate sin from sinner and hate the right one. We can be constantly reminded that a […]

He is . . . a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief —Isaiah 53:3 Most of us have “experienced” grief. We have lost a loved one or a job. We have been hurt by a word or a shun. However, we are not “acquainted with grief” in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it.  Real grief is associated with sin. We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue— if sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine— that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms […]

With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you —Matthew 7:2 We tend to treat this statement of the Lord as hyperbole., an exaggeration. Surely, He did not mean this literally. According to OC, He very much means it. “This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God.  We need to stop and think about this because we are, oh so quick to judge others. The sad thing is the things we judge others for are generally the things of which we ourselves are guilty. It is, after all, the reason we are so good at recognizing the fault in others: it’s all too familar. Our course is to be as humble as possible. To recognize that even the vilest thing we observe in others lurks in our hearts. If such vileness has not arisen in our lives is not thanks to us, but to the enduring grace of God.The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, “Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in […]