Category: God’s grace

He Took My Sins Away #5

Sunday, August 24, 2014

“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God” (Romans 3:25 KJV).

The chorus of Margaret Jenkins Harris’ classic 1903 hymn “He Took My Sins Away” highlights today’s Scripture.

“He took my sins away, He took my sins away,
And keeps me singing every day!
I’m so glad He took my sins away, He took my sins away.”

When our King James Bible references “propitiation” (today’s Scripture; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10), it means “a fully-satisfying payment for sins;” the Greek word is translated “mercyseat” in Hebrews 9:5. The God of Scripture, once angry with us sinners (Psalm 7:11), is now satisfied because of Jesus’ shed blood. Jesus Christ is the only Person in whom we find mercy before Father God, where we can be spared God’s righteous wrath against our sin, where our sin debt can not only be covered, but completely canceled. “…[T]he blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Not only are we forgiven in Christ, but we are also justified (made right in God’s sight) in Christ (Romans 5:1; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Our spiritual debt is not only gone, but we have been given spiritual riches (Romans 8:32; Ephesians 1:3; Colossians 2:10). In banking terminology, we went from “red” (sin, ungodliness), to “0” (forgiveness), to “black” (justification, righteousness). Praise our Lord Jesus Christ for His grace!

Such marvelous Bible truths should make the saint shout and sing from the rooftops! It is often said that Christians should be the happiest people on earth, and yet, many times, Christians frown and sag their heads more than lost people (who do not have God’s acceptance, peace, hope, and love). The Scriptures say that if we learn God’s will (by studying His Word), and we allow the Holy Spirit to use those Scriptures in us, we will naturally begin to sing, rejoice, and be thankful to our Lord in light of such doctrine (Ephesians 5:17-20; Colossians 3:15,16).

He took our sins away! Praise our Lord Jesus Christ! He took our sins away! 🙂

Our latest Bible Q&A: “We are saved by faith, but are we blessed by works?”

He Took My Sins Away #2

Thursday, August 21, 2014

“Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20).

The second verse of Margaret Jenkins Harris’ classic 1903 hymn “He Took My Sins Away” highlights today’s Scripture.

“The load of sin was more than I could bear.
He took my sins away, He took my sins away.
And now on Him I roll my ev’ry care,
He took my sins away.”

While many assume that the Mosaic Law was given to help us get to heaven, the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul starkly disagreed (see today’s Scripture). The Law was given to codify sin, to clearly delineate what actions God accepts and what actions He hates. In fact, the Law has often been likened unto a mirror: it shows you your faults and blemishes, but it has no power to help you correct them.

In his epistle to the Galatians, Paul wrote, “the law… was added because of transgressions” (3:19). Did JEHOVAH give Israel the Mosaic Law because they were so obedient? NAY! Because they were such lovely people who delighted in serving Him by faith? NAY! Because He wanted to show them how good they were? NAY! God gave the Law to show Israel, yea all the world (Romans 3:19), that they were sinners in denial, and they needed a system to thoroughly demonstrate to them that they would repeatedly “cross the line” when God said not to (the word “transgress” [“go across”] conveys that concept). The Law was irrefutable proof that Israel could only be God’s people because of His grace, not because of their performance—the Law only generated His wrath (Romans 4:15).

Jesus Christ came and kept the Law, the Law we repeatedly broke. Now we can come by faith in Him and receive the peace with God and peace of God. In Christ, God is not mad at us anymore. He is satisfied with us because we are in Christ, the only One in whom He is satisfied. The Person who always did His Father’s will with the humblest attitude.

Yea, He nullified our sin debt….

Our latest Bible Q&A: “What is the ‘that which is perfect is come’ in 1 Corinthians 13:10?”

One Who Never Disappoints

Thursday, August 14, 2014

“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23 KJV).

When life disheartens, let us be assured in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Person who never disappoints.

The recent, tragic suicide of comedian and actor Robin Williams was the consequence of life’s problems becoming too overwhelming. Dear friends, this most unfortunate event demonstrates that material wealth and popularity do not guarantee happiness. Celebrities are not super-humans, just as human as we are, and also subject to this world’s temptations.

People often surround themselves with power, money, houses, lands, sex, friendships and marriages, vacations, and drugs and alcohol, attempting to fill the void in their heart that only the Lord Jesus Christ can fill. The more they fill that vacuum with things that do not belong, the emptier and more hopeless they feel. While suicide is not the answer, the human heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), enough to cause us to think it is. Nay, the answer to life’s problems is not our death, but the answer to our sin problem is Jesus Christ’s death. Depression strikes individuals, whether rich or poor, with absolute hopelessness, that there is no way out of life’s difficulties. It distracts lost and saved alike from the hope, solution, forgiveness, love, grace, acceptance, and peace God offers us in and through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

Beloved, may we not have misplaced dependencies, may we not lapse into depression, may we not commit suicide, and may we not look down upon depressed individuals and those who commit suicide (we, being equally human, are not immune to depression or suicide). Sin ever so complicates life but there is such simplicity in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3).

Philippians 2:16 says that we Christians are to “hold forth the word of life,” to offer the Gospel of the Grace of God—Jesus Christ’s death, bloodshed, burial, and resurrection as sufficient payment for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3,4)—to any and all we meet. There is life in Jesus Christ, eternal life (today’s Scripture), and may we focus more on that everlasting life than the temporary troubles of this one! 🙂

arC Ministries Turns 7!

Thursday, July 31, 2014

“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20 KJV).

Rejoice with us in Christ Jesus as arC Ministries celebrates its seventh anniversary today!

On July 31, 2007, I started a Facebook group titled, “ambassadors for the risen Christ.” It was one of the first Bible study groups on Facebook, designed to serve as a platform where I would write and post Bible studies for college students to read and discuss (it still exists today). These last seven years have certainly flown by. To dream that that small group would lead to where our ministry is today was totally unexpected!

For the last three years, we have dedicated much of our time to this devotionals blog, and for the last two years, we have focused on developing and drafting a grace study Bible (entering its third year tomorrow). Other ministry projects include a 22-week newspaper ministry column (this devotionals blog’s predecessor), a YouTube channel with home Bible study videos, a Twitter feed, a full-length Bible studies blog, a college campus ministry, a nursing-home ministry, and late last year, we introduced our Bible-question-and-answer blog.

We have heard from people from five continents and from many walks of life—atheists, pastors, priests, seminarians, common church members, and Bible teachers. It has been quite a joy to see countless people come to understand and rejoice in Bible truth, whether they were saved unto eternal life or rescued from vain religious tradition unto spiritual maturity.

Our very name says it all: we serve the risen Lord Jesus Christ, not some “dead Jew” and not ourselves. Dear saints, for those of you who have been with us these last seven years, we thank you for your prayer support. This is your fruit, and in eternity, you will partake of the benefits. How we are ever grateful to our Lord Jesus Christ, who committed unto all of us the ministry of reconciliation, that we may tell others God has paid the price of their sins in full at Calvary, and teach them from the rightly divided Bible what it all means in light of eternity.

Here is to another seven years to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ! Onward in Him we go! 🙂

Evil Seen and Punished

Saturday, July 26, 2014

“The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3 KJV).

Certainly, God sees evil, and in due time, He will punish it!

One of the lamest so-called “arguments against God’s existence” is the presence of unpunished evil (this is also an “argument against the police’s existence!”). Oddly, these Bible scoffers then ridicule the “cruel, vengeful God of the Old Testament.” It seems like that sinful man is determined to criticize God no matter what He does!

A very wise Christian once pointed out that the atheist really defeats himself or herself with their mind-games, conceding that evil unpunished will forever remain unpunished because God supposedly does not exist. To say that evil does exist is to presume that good also exists, and that just as there is one source of evil there is also one source of good. To say that God does not exist is to make our lives meaningless. What we do in our lives really will not make a difference in the long run. No, certainly the atheist would disagree with us when we continue their assumptions into the long-term; their ideas are more comfortable when applied only to the here-and-now.

Ecclesiastes 8:11-13 reminds us: “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him: But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.”

The wicked, Bible rejecters, haters of the Lord Jesus Christ, have “days which are as a shadow.” Until God stops them from breathing His air, drinking His water, eating His food, and enjoying His world, He will continue to offer them His love, grace, mercy, and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Indeed, the atheist’s evil will not remain unpunished, so may he or she come to God through Jesus Christ to have that wrath satisfied before it is eternally punished.

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Does God chasten us when we sin?”

 

Sin, Death, Jesus, and Life

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

“Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15 KJV).

Wherever we find sin, we find death—wherever we find death, we find sin. Wherever we find life, we find Jesus—wherever we find Jesus, we find life.

Early yesterday morning my family learned the sad news that my paternal grandmother passed away in her sleep at age 87, at a family member’s home. Grandma suffered numerous, chronic health issues during her final years alive. These last several months she had been growing weaker, so we had been preparing ourselves for her departure. Unfortunately, we never had a chance to tell her goodbye. Mom and I had been sitting by her bedside, and it was not long after that that she passed.

We all know that one of the hardest events to bear is the death of a family member. Considering, we cannot imagine the pain that Mary experienced as she witnessed Jesus her son slowly suffocating on Calvary’s cross. For God the Father to see His Son experiencing such a horrible event, we will never even partially grasp that pain Father God felt. In the end, sin will always cause suffering. Ultimately, as today’s Scripture avows, “When it is finished, sin bringeth forth death.” Because of sin, even Jesus Christ had to die—not for our His own sins, of course, for “[Jesus] knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21), but He “died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3).

In the midst of this lost, sinful, hopeless, dying world, the Lord Jesus Christ offered hope in the following words: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). In this world of sin and death, the only answer is righteousness and life (by faith, we find both in Jesus Christ alone). We find eternal rest in Him, we find everlasting life in Him, and we have abounding grace and mercy in Him, that we can bear the grief and burdens we face in this fallen world. When Jesus Christ is all we have, we learn that He is all we need!

-IN MEMORIAM-
Hester Tweedel Brasseux
(30 April 1927 – 21 July 2014)

Unappreciative Apostates

Sunday, July 20, 2014

“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images” (Hosea 11:1,2 KJV).

Israel is not the only nation in history to abandon the one true God….

I recently read that, according to one poll, 10 percent of Americans read their Bible daily. While this is most assuredly not shocking (we know the reason for the rapid moral decay!), it is a troubling reality. The first book ever printed here in the United States was the Bay Psalm Book, the Bible’s book of Psalms in English (printed in 1640). Now, the Bible is the least of most Americans’ daily concern!

A nation once known for its Bible missionaries, Bible-teaching universities, and Bible-supporting legal system, now has “better” things to offer the world than Jesus Christ—“education” and entertainment. Just as sure as Israel rose for God’s glory, and fell when she abandoned Him, so our great American nation will surely fall in due time (yea, the current deterioration is just a precursor!). We should truly thank God that, unlike Israel of old, we live in this the Dispensation of Grace, and His grace is temporarily withholding that wrath (2 Corinthians 5:18,19)!

Today’s Scripture is JEHOVAH’S testimony through the Prophet Hosea about how much Israel’s God loved her. He had rescued her so miraculously from Egyptian bondage, that she would forever serve Him in the land that He had given her forefathers. Israel was to be God’s “son,” a nation of people who would not only know God’s will, but who would also delight in accomplishing it with Him; out of the riches of His grace, He would bless them immeasurably, spiritually and materially. Yet, Israel refused; they did not want God’s love, God’s commandments, God’s will. Instead, Israel became a spiritual prostitute, worshipping and serving pagan idols, their own will. (Sound familiar?) Not too long after Hosea preached, the Assyrians and Babylonians took Israel away!

Yea, Israel’s history confirms, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17).

When the Church Confers

Friday, July 18, 2014

“…[G]ive attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine” (1 Timothy 4:13).

Having attended a grace Bible conference via the internet these last six days, I devote today’s devotional to reflecting upon it.

Anytime we meet with like-minded believers in Jesus Christ, it should be the most enjoyable experience this side of heaven. Moreover, when two-dozen Holy-Spirit-filled, knowledgeable yet humble, preachers of God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ, teach from the King James Bible rightly divided, the lost will hear the Gospel of Grace many times over, and the saints will be greatly edified many times over.

The conference was a very refreshing time for people who were confused about soul salvation unto justification and eternal life, and an equally encouraging time for Christians who needed either establishment or stabilization in sound Bible doctrine. No one went home without hearing the Gospel of God’s Grace (Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork as sufficient payment for our sins), no one went home without hearing about proper Bible study (Paul’s apostleship to us), and no one went home without having heard about the infallibility and reliability of the King James Bible. What they do with that information is their decision, not ours.

In accordance with today’s Scripture, attendance was indeed given to reading, exhortation, and doctrine. Attendance to “study[ing]… rightly dividing the word of truth” was certainly given (2 Timothy 2:15); attendance to believing those verses, however, that is the hearer’s prerogative. Those who did trust the Gospel presented, they passed from death to life; those who believed the sound Bible doctrine presented, they were liberated from denominational yokes and prisons, and Bible perversions. Yea, some heard more sound Bible doctrine in six days, than they heard in all their lives in “church!”

Such a conference of sound Bible doctrine redounds to the Lord Jesus Christ’s glory alone, it resounds throughout the heavenly places, and it abounds in the hearts of us who believe. O, the manifold grace of God to all mankind! O, the manifold grace of God that enables us in Christ to tell all of lost mankind about that manifold grace of God to them! 🙂

NOTE: I highly recommend the 2014 Grace School of the Bible Summer Family Bible Conference to you. You may access its archived videos and MP3’s here.

Liberated to Serve

Friday, July 4, 2014

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13 KJV).

Today, as we in the United States celebrate the 238th anniversary of our nation’s independence, we invite our Christian brethren worldwide to rejoice with us concerning our freedom in Jesus Christ.

When we proclaim Romans 6:14—“Ye are not under the law, but under grace”—people tend to assume “loose living.” Does “grace living” really mean we can now live any way we want? Lest anyone be misled in that regard, God the Holy Spirit moved the Apostle Paul to write in the next verse, “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid [May God never let that happen!]” (Romans 6:15). Grace living is not Law-keeping, but it certainly is not Law-breaking either.

God still cares how we live, albeit He is not operating the “weak and beggarly” system of “bondage” (Law) that He once did with Israel (Galatians 4:9). God proved to the entire world that since Israel could not keep His commandments perfectly, no other sons of Adam (the Gentiles) could either: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them [Israel] who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world [Gentiles] may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19).

We sinners cannot keep the Law. However, God in His grace provided us a way to escape that condemnation by sending Jesus Christ to offer Himself on Calvary’s cruel cross to pay for our sins. By simple faith in Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection as the fully-satisfying payment for our sins, we can now be “made the righteousness of God in [Christ]” (2 Corinthians 5:21). We can be delivered from the penalty of sin (hell and the lake of fire) and the power of sin (flesh-walking).

Why are we Christians free? To selfishly live any way we want? NO! Today’s Scripture says we are liberated to now serve others, especially our Christian brethren, just as Jesus Christ selflessly served His Father and selflessly died on our behalf. That is grace living!!!!

Please see our 2011 Fourth of July Bible study “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land,” which can be watched here or read here.

At Calvary #5

Saturday, June 21, 2014

“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24 KJV).

The chorus of William R. Newell’s classic 1895 hymn “At Calvary” highlights today’s Scripture.

“Mercy there was great, and grace was free,
Pardon there was multiplied to me,
There my burdened soul found liberty
At Calvary.”

“Mercy” means “pity, compassion,” God holding back what we deserve (His wrath). “Grace” is God’s unmerited favor—it is free to us (apart from our works) because Jesus Christ paid for it with His life (it is not “cheap grace!”). In Christ, we are liberated from sin’s dominion and works-religion bondage (Galatians 5:1)—the “redemption,” the purchasing of our freedom, through Jesus Christ’s shed blood. We received “redemption through [Christ’s] blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of [God’s] grace” (Ephesians 1:7; cf. Colossians 1:14). The riches of God’s grace—where our sin abounds, God’s grace abounds far, far, far, far more (Romans 5:20). God’s forgiveness, His abundant pardon, is offered to us at Calvary’s cross.

For our dear readers who are lost, who have never come to a point in their lives where they relied exclusively on Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection as sufficient payment for their sins, we urge them to do so today before it is eternally too late. No matter what you have done in your life, there is no sin so vile that Jesus Christ’s blood cannot cover it. At Calvary, the God of the Bible offers all the mercy, grace, love, and forgiveness you will ever need, but none of it can be applied to you until you trust Jesus Christ alone as your personal Saviour.

After soul salvation unto eternal life, we join our Apostle Paul in reflecting upon our former lives, and we conclude with him, “but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:13,14). Indeed, the mercy, grace, faith, and love of Jesus Christ are more than enough.

Saints, being mindful that our (self-) life ended at Calvary, and our (eternal) life began at Calvary, let us sing “At Calvary” with grateful hearts! 🙂