Author: Kerry

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest.
Hebrews 4:9-11

Strive for Rest

The soldiers, rough and run down, file out of the truck. Their clothes are ragged. Their bodies are stiff and sore. For months, they fought hard and slept little. To say that these soldiers are tired would be an understatement. They have been on the battlefront too long.

As they line up, the commanding officer reminds them why they are here. They must use this time wisely. They have only one responsibility: rest and recuperate. It will take a few days for their bodies to respond, but gradually their energy will return as they find rest.

Is your soul tired? Are you worn down by your battle against your spiritual enemies–the devil and your own sinful flesh? Are you exhausted from trying to live up to God’s standard only to realize day after day that you fail?

Let God’s promise in today’s Bible reading comfort you. It promises that it is not our efforts that make us worthy to be with God. Jesus has already done that work. He carefully carried out his Father’s orders in everything. You don’t have to sweat or strain to soften God’s anger or try to win his love. Jesus has dismissed you from that wearying and worrying work.

So, you can rest. You can rest in him.

Prayer:
Dear Jesus, when I am weary, help me find rest in you. Amen.

After Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the LORD his God, and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.
2 Chronicles 26:16

Arrogant Pride

What were you doing at the age of sixteen?

For most of us, our teenage years were typical. Our time was consumed with dating, school, sports, and getting our driver’s license. Uzziah didn’t have a typical teenage experience. By the time he was sixteen, Uzziah was ruling the nation of Judah.

Uzziah was a great king. But the legacy he left behind is that arrogant pride will result in personal ruin. His name means the Lord is my strength and early in his reign Uzziah lived up to that name. He followed God faithfully. He lived in humble obedience before the Lord. As long as he did, God gave him tremendous success. Uzziah became the greatest ruler since Solomon.

Unfortunately, greatness went to Uzziah’s head. He forgot that the Lord’s hand, not his own, had achieved these great things. In arrogant pride, Uzziah forgot his place, strutted into the temple, and took over. The priests tried to stop him. Uzziah lost his temper. God struck him with a skin disease that stuck with him. He had to live out the rest of his reign in quarantine.

Uzziah serves as a reminder for all of us: In all things, give God glory. He is the source of all our successes. His hand, not ours, accomplishes great things for us. We would have nothing if God did not give it to us.

But even when pride goes to our head, and we fall flat, God remains faithful in his goodness. He lifts our eyes so we can see Jesus, who lived in perfect humility before God, as our substitute. And although he was without sin, God inflicted him and caused him to suffer the guilt of our arrogant pride.

So, whether it is success we have in this life or our hope of eternal life in heaven, we owe it all to God. May this reality keep us thankfully humble.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, make me mindful that all I have is a gift from you. Amen.

Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin . . . the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand . . . By his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many . . . Therefore I will give him a portion among the great.
Isaiah 53:10-12

Our Great Redeemer

You are a hardened criminal. For as long as you can remember, you have been in trouble with the law. When the authorities finally apprehend you, they charge you with society’s worst imaginable crimes and drag you to court.

You stand with your court-appointed attorney in front of the judge. Over the next twelve hours, the prosecution presents witness after witness and produces evidence after evidence. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, you are guilty. The judge sentences you to 10 consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole.

Just as the judge is about to close the case, your attorney speaks up. “Your honor,” he says, “I am willing to take responsibility for this person’s crimes. I will assume his guilt. I will accept the consequences. I will satisfy the sentence.”

“Very well,” the judge responds. “I will allow it. The accused is free to go.”

You can’t believe your ears. This is great!

As great as this news would be, the good news of what Jesus has done for us is even greater.

We fall short of God’s approval. He has his limits, and we continually cross the line. He has his demands, and we keep missing the mark. There is no such thing as a misdemeanor in God’s courtroom. If we break one law, we are guilty of breaking them all. It’s a death sentence—hell without parole.

But Jesus is our God-appointed attorney. And since he could not argue our innocence, he stepped in and assumed our guilt. When he went to the cross, he suffered our punishment. With his dying breath, Jesus satisfied God’s sentence against us. By raising Jesus from the dead, God drives away all doubt for the sake of Jesus; we are forgiven. We are free!

Isn’t Jesus great?

Prayer:
Dearest Jesus, thank you for being my great Redeemer, for suffering my sentence and setting me free. Amen.

Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.
Hebrews 3:1,2

Perfection

In the 1986 fighter pilot movie “Top Gun,” the theme was the need to be perfect. The fighter pilots often heard the phrase “there are no points for second place.” That meant as a fighter pilot you needed to be perfect because anything less meant that you would likely die in an encounter with the enemy.

We live in a very competitive world. People strive to be the best they can be. But how good do we have to be for God to accept us? How can we reach the level of perfection that God demands?

The truth is that if we try to be perfect before God, we’re always going to fail. It is the hard cold reality of sin. God demands that we be perfect. Yet just one wrong deed or a single bad thought causes us to fail.

But there is hope in Jesus! “He was faithful to the one who appointed him.” God appointed his eternal Son, Jesus, to be the world’s Savior. Jesus accepted that mission and accomplished it. He left heaven and lived a perfect life here on earth. Yes, he never sinned once. That’s important because God, in his love for us, credits Jesus’ perfection to us. Jesus was also faithful to his heavenly Father by submitting himself to death. He didn’t deserve to die because he was perfect, but he died because we are not. God laid the guilt of all our imperfections—our sins—on Jesus for which he paid the penalty of death in our place.

By faith in our faithful Savior, we will stand before God with the assurance of a blessed eternity in heaven!

Prayer:
Thank you, Jesus, for being faithful to your Father and saving me from my sins. Keep my eyes fixed on you and the hope of eternal life you provide. Amen.

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:1

Peace in Our Hearts

Do you know the story of the little boy who loved the Lord Jesus with all his heart? The boy had a very serious heart problem, so serious that the surgeon found it necessary to operate on his heart. The surgeon told the boy, “Tomorrow morning, I will open up your heart….” “You will find Jesus there,” the little boy interrupted. Being a bit annoyed, the surgeon took the boy by the hand and explained, “I will cut your heart open. I have to see how much damage has been done…” “But when you open up my heart, you will find Jesus in there,” the little boy said again.

The next day following the surgery, the surgeon recorded the notes “…damaged aorta, damaged pulmonary vein, muscle degeneration. No hope for transplant or a cure.” Tears flowed from his eyes as he recalled the faith in this little boy’s heart. When he awoke from the surgery, he whispered to the surgeon, “Did you cut open my heart?” “Yes,” said the surgeon. “What did you find?” asked the boy. “I found Jesus there,” said the surgeon.

In this story a well-educated and learned surgeon learned from a child. He learned what it meant to have child-like faith and to believe in Jesus so that even in the face of death, we need not worry but be at peace and have the confident hope that we will be with him in heaven. All this is because Jesus suffered, died, and rose again to pay for all of our sins.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, give me a child-like faith, a faith that does not doubt or question what God’s plans are for me, but a faith which trusts his precious promises for my physical and eternal well-being. Amen.

[Jesus] said, “Go, sell everything you have . . . Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Mark 10:21,22

Ouch

You have an area on your left side that has become uncomfortable. You go to a doctor. The doctor seems to examine everything except the area in question, “I see no problems. You look just fine,” he says. As you go home, you’re uneasy. For while you’ve just been to a doctor who’s given you a clean bill of health, you sense he has failed to put his finger on the problem.

In Mark chapter 10, the man who approaches Jesus presumes that his spiritual health is in good shape. He believes he has lived a decent life. He does not see any glaring problems in his relationship with God.

Jesus, however, is the Great Physician. He conducts his diagnosis of this man in a way that the man discovers he is hurting where he did not even realize he was hurting. The man happens to be quite wealthy. When Jesus challenges him to part with all his wealth for the sake of following Jesus, the man is crestfallen. He walks away sad. In love, the Great Physician has placed his finger on the area that hurts. He has gotten the man to say, “Ouch.”

In my sinful weakness, I often possess a genius for sliding into the presumption that my spiritual health is in pretty good condition. Sure, there are garden-variety sins here and there, but my self-diagnosis frequently comes up with a clean bill of health.

And this is why we need our Savior. Through his Word and his hand in my life, our Great Physician puts his finger on that area of my life where I am truly hurting. In love, he gets me to say, “Ouch.”

Is this pleasant when he does this? No, it isn’t. But Jesus loves me enough to do it. For when he causes me to wince, I then realize even more how much I need his blood to wash me clean, to forgive my sin, to bring me his healing.

And through faith in him, that’s what I have—you and I both.

Prayer:
Great Physician, you make me realize how much I need you. Thank you for the healing I possess in your blood. Amen.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Hebrews 13:4

Tender Subject

Today’s Bible verse touches on a tender subject. Many of us carry deep emotional wounds from the misuse of God’s gifts of marriage and sex. These wounds may be self-inflicted. Or we may be carrying them due to the actions of others. Our Lord cares about us enough, however, to speak to us about it in loving candor.

The Lord tells us, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure”—the “marriage bed” referring to God’s wedding gift of sexual intimacy. Our Heavenly Father is clear on this matter. His wedding gift of sexual intimacy is for a husband and wife to enjoy within the exclusive security of marriage—not before it and not outside of it. To emphasize his serious concern about this, his Word goes on to say, for God will judge the adulterer” (that is, anyone who is unfaithful in marriage) “and all the sexually immoral” (that is, anyone who misuses God’s wedding gift of sexual intimacy in any way, whether that person is married or single).

Several decades ago, our culture, to a great degree, bought into the premise that what God’s Word says about marriage is unnecessary. The implied promise was that if you threw off the old notions about marriage and sex, your life would be happier, healthier, more pleasurable, more free.

Sadly, the results are in: broken homes, broken trust, emotional scars for both parents and children, resentment, isolation, loneliness. Such is the nature of sin, of course—your sin and mine. It promises a better life if we only ignore God’s will for our lives. But sin can never deliver on its promise.

Jesus, however, does. Always. In our place, he lived a life of purity, a life of perfect obedience to God’s will. At the cross, his blood washed away our every unfaithfulness, our every dark sin. When we fix our eyes on him in repentant hearts, all is forgiven. All!

Which empowers us to begin again when it comes to our approach to marriage. All to the glory of our Savior.

Prayer:
Forgive me, Lord, for where I have fallen in this area of my life. Empower me to trust your will. Amen.

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers.
Hebrews 13:2

Welcome

Sometimes a simple book title can say all that needs to be said. In 2019 an author by the name of Alisha Anderson came out with a book with just such a title. The title of her book is The Lost Art of Hospitality.

Many observers of our present culture have remarked that more and more people seem to feel uncomfortable when it comes to practicing hospitality on a personal level. There could be many social reasons for this, of course. Perhaps the “professional” side of hospitality has been elbowing out the personal side. Perhaps the frantic pace of Twenty-first Century life has discouraged personal hospitality. Or perhaps the term coined back in the 90s, “cocooning,” which describes the tendency for people to curl up by themselves within their own homes—perhaps that is making an impact too.

Whatever the reasons, you and I do well to pause and give this some thought. Have I given in to the self-absorbed culture to such a degree that I no longer focus on making someone else feel appreciated, accepted, comfortable, welcome? To the degree that I have fallen short in this area of my life, I need to come to repentance before the God who calls upon me to do just that in my relationships with others.

And this is where Jesus comes in. Wherever he traveled, he took deliberate care to make others feel valued and welcome. Jesus did this on our behalf. He also went to the cross to wash us clean of all of our self-absorbed moments. Through faith in him, we stand forgiven, embraced, accepted.

How can I thank him for this? I don’t necessarily need to go out and compel a family to stay in my home for a week. But maybe I could invite someone out for a cup of coffee and give that person my undivided attention. Or invite someone out to a park with a couple of fast-food milkshakes. Or maybe I could open my humble home for a couple of hours to share a pizza. Whatever I do, I do it to thank the Lord Jesus for all he has done to care about me.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, thank you for seeking me out. Move me to show the same kind of care for others. Amen.

For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.
Hebrews 3:4

The Builder

Near Iceland lies a cluster of islands called the Faroe Islands. In these islands stands one of the oldest continuously occupied houses in the world. It’s called “The Viking Farmhouse.” It’s a cozy, wood-framed home. The family currently occupying the house has had it for some time—17 generations to be exact. The Viking Farmhouse is about one thousand years old.

There are no records that survive for who designed it, gathered the materials, or built the house. Its very existence, however, declares that someone did.

In the Bible, God engages us in various ways when it comes to his existence. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, he invites us to stand in front of a house—any house—and give that house a good look. As we stand before that house, we may not see the architect or contractor; we may not see the carpenters, plumbers, and electricians who were once there. However, the very existence of the house gives testimony to their work.

With that, God invites us to take in something a bit bigger. He invites us to look at the creation around us and give it a good look. Look at the heavens. Look at the stars. Look at the precise orbit of our planet around the sun. Look at the breathtaking orchestration of our ecosystem. Look at the overwhelming sophistication of just one single cell in our human bodies. God invites us to look at all of this, for it all points to him. He is the builder.

But he is far more than just the builder. When humanity, the crown of his creation, chose to sever its relationship with God, God did what he had to do to bring us home. The builder became one of us. He walked among us in the person of Jesus Christ. As our substitute, Jesus lived the life we failed to live. He suffered and died for our every wrong, all to set things right.

That’s the love the builder has for you.

Prayer:
Lord, thank you for creating me. And thank you for saving me. I am doubly yours. Amen.

Seek the LORD and live.
Amos 5:6

The Beach

Colonel George Taylor had a problem. It was D-Day. His men had just landed on a Normandy beach to begin the invasion of Nazi-occupied France. The problem was that his men felt trapped on the beach. Their position was alive with enemy gunfire, and everyone was afraid to move forward.

But above the roar of gunfire and the explosion of mortars and the cries of the wounded, Colonel Taylor simply shouted this: “There are only two kinds of men on this beach—those who are dead, and those who are about to die. Let’s get out of here.”

His simple logic worked. His men realized that the beach meant only death. The sooner they moved forward and moved off the beach, the sooner they would find life.

In the Old Testament book of Amos, God’s people found themselves on a similar beach of sorts. It was not a beach threatened with gunfire, however. Rather it was a beach of their own making. It was a beach of their own sin. In spiritual terms, there were only two kinds of people on their beach—those who were dead, and those who were about to die.

The Lord, however, loved his people. That love moved him to speak to them in a clarity that was both piercing and beautiful. “Seek the LORD and live,” he said.

How about you? Do you feel as though you are trapped on a beach right now—a beach of your own making? If so, perhaps you know exactly how you ended up on this beach, or perhaps you don’t. Either way, you sense that this awful beach of yours is not where you’re supposed to be. And what was true of that beach in Normandy is true of your beach too. On it, there are only two kinds of people— “those who are dead, and those who are about to die.”

But Jesus has come to the rescue. On your behalf, he has lived a sinless life. On your behalf, he has washed you clean at the cross. Now, through his Word, he proclaims to you his gospel invitation: “Seek the LORD and live.” The way off your beach has arrived. His name is Jesus.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you are my rescue. I am yours. Amen.