Category: correction

Instant Christians #4

Friday, January 9, 2015

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2 KJV).

In this day and age of “instant this and instant that,” we need more “instant” Christians!

Higher education trains people for special fields. These graduates’ minds are so engrained with the terms and concepts of their particular disciplines that they can instantly enter the mode needed to fulfill that role. For example, when a medical professional witnesses a medical crisis, he or she is skilled to assess quickly, act quickly, and amend the situation quickly. The healthcare professional does not stand or sit there idly, utterly clueless regarding what needs to be done, waiting for someone else to act. Their medical training just naturally takes over, and they respond appropriately. Today’s Scripture says that a Christian should behave similarly when confronted with any matter in life. We need to simply let the Holy Spirit train us by studying and memorizing His Bible.

With great sadness we acknowledge that the average Christian has not been trained in God’s Word (just familiar with denominational creeds, ecclesiastical prayers, religious clichés, and manmade dogmas). Thus, when confronted with even the simplest Bible questions, let alone the deeper ones, he or she has very little input (sometimes no input whatsoever!). The Bible critics go unanswered (most Christians equally ignorant of Scripture).

We endlessly thank and praise our Lord Jesus Christ for the precious few saints, men and women, who, throughout church history, stood boldly for God’s truth because they knew God’s truth. God used them to give us our English Bible (King James). While the vast majority of Christians were wanting in Bible understanding and doctrine, and still are today, these few “instant” Christians continue in God’s ministry.

Actually, I entered the ministry over seven years ago because I so desired to share God’s truth with others—the timeless Bible truths that religion hid from me for the first 20 years of life and the first 15 years of my Christian life! Our goal in this very ministry is to equip God’s people with His truth, that fewer Christians find themselves in the “clueless” predicament that so infects the professing church. How we share God’s desire in having “instant” Christians….

Instant Christians #3

Thursday, January 8, 2015

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2 KJV).

In this day and age of “instant this and instant that,” we need more “instant” Christians!

Let us read today’s Scripture within its context: “[1] I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; [2] Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”

To begin this final chapter to the Body of Christ, the Holy Spirit issues a “charge,” a command, what we are to do with the previous three chapters of information. We are ordered to “preach the Word,” not to keep it to ourselves, not to keep it on our bookshelves, and not to hope someone else (with more degrees, more “talent,” more “piety”) will share it with others.

Furthermore, we are to be prepared to preach the Word. Sadly, many people are eager to preach and/or teach the Bible, but sincerity and fervency without spiritual knowledge and wisdom are dangerous. Frankly, the vast majority of people in “Christianity” today, particularly ministers and teachers, need to hush and study their Bible because they have little to no understanding of the Book they claim to be believing and proclaiming (that was me years ago!). It had been better had they said and wrote nothing regarding theology, than to defile God’s people and harm them with the very Bible that should have (had it been taught correctly) stabilized their souls and protected them from the “grievous wolves” lurking in religion (Acts 20:28-32)!

Paul urged Timothy, yea, all Christians, to be “instant in season, out of season.” Ministers and Bible teachers are to be especially mindful that they are leaders in the Christian community, and like all Christians, they have to study God’s Word so they can be ready to minister it, share and proclaim it, in convenient times and in inconvenient times. Saint, you must be prepared, for you never know who will approach you seeking the Bible’s truth, or at what time of day (or night!) you will “come upon” (remember our previous devotional?) them….

Instant Christians #2

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2 KJV).

In this day and age of “instant this and instant that,” we need more “instant” Christians!

The Greek word translated “instant” in today’s Scripture is ephistemi, used elsewhere to describe: an angel “coming” (Luke 2:9; Acts 12:7), Anna “quickly coming” in gratitude to see the Christ Child (Luke 2:38), Jesus “immediately” healing Peter’s mother-in-law of a high fever (Luke 4:39), irritated Martha “approaching” Jesus (Luke 10:40), Israel’s religious leaders “coming” to intimidate Christ and His apostles and disciples (Luke 20:1; Acts 4:1; Acts 6:12), Cornelius’ three messengers “immediately” coming and “standing” before Simon’s door awaiting Peter’s arrival (Acts 10:17; Acts 11:11), the unbelievers “assaulting” the members of the household of Jason (Acts 17:5), Ananias “standing” near newly-converted Saul of Tarsus (Acts 22:13), Saul of Tarsus “standing by” holding the coats of those who were stoning Stephen to death (Acts 22:20), the Lord “standing by” Paul to comfort him (Acts 23:11), chief captain Claudius Lysias “coming” with an army to deliver Paul from a mob that wanted him dead (Acts 23:27), the “present” rain that poured as Paul and his shipmates reached the island of Melita (Acts 28:2), the sudden destruction of the future Tribulation “coming” upon the unsuspecting unbelievers (1 Thessalonians 5:3), and Paul’s execution and departure to heaven being “at hand” (2 Timothy 4:6).

In today’s Scripture, “instant” means “ready to act”—it implies intense activity or an impending quick motion (see examples in previous paragraph), not idleness or inactivity (sitting or standing around doing nothing). Paul is charging Timothy (and all Christians) to not be slothful in the ministry, hoping “someone else” will share the Gospel with others, hoping “someone else” will teach Christians God’s Word rightly divided. The Holy Ghost knows that it is easy for our flesh to surrender to opposition, to be passive or lazy, to keep the Bible but just teach it according to a denomination or church tradition for the sake of pleasing man, or to throw away the Bible completely and do what “everyone else is doing” (in religion or in “the world”).

Let us continue hearing the Holy Spirit through Paul….

Instant Christians #1

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2 KJV).

In this day and age of “instant this and instant that,” we need more “instant” Christians!

Today’s Scripture is a highlight from Paul’s farewell epistle. In this concluding treatise, the Holy Spirit presents the final marching orders to the Church the Body of Christ. Once this last epistle was written, the Bible’s canon was complete—all 66 inspired books were present as scrolls in the first century A.D., ready for copying and distribution to all saints everywhere. Since the penning of 2 Timothy, there has been no further revelation from God: today’s Scripture indicates that Timothy had a complete Bible, a complete divine revelation, and that he was to preach “the word” and nothing else.

According to 2 Timothy 3:15-17, verses previous to today’s Scripture, Timothy was to preach “the scripture” (written text), not “oral church tradition!” Yea, there would be no subsequent “development of doctrine through Sacred Tradition,” but rather depravity of doctrine through church tradition (clearly predicted in 1 Timothy chapter 4 and 2 Timothy chapters 3 and 4). According to 2 Timothy 1:15, apostasy had already infected and misled most Christians, even before Paul wrote that very letter! Few ever realize that the Body of Christ was doctrinally deficient, weak, confused, and deceived 2,000 years ago—even today, the Bible is pushed aside and church members read everything else.

As secular humanism grows stronger culturally, the Christians remain weak. Rather than learning God’s truth to preach it so people can have an alternative to error, church members stay silent (except for the whining about how deception runs rampant). How we grieve with the Holy Spirit that the church abounds with weak Christians! They are learning nothing solid in church meetings, just shallow messages that keep them happy (and ignorant of the deeper things of God’s Word). The cults and world religions thoroughly indoctrinate their members with nonsense, but they put most Christian pastors and members to shameful silence—they know more about their own holy books and our Bible than the Christians do of either!

Oh, how we need “instant” Christians….

A Life That Will Please

Sunday, January 4, 2015

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).

Today’s Scripture tells us who alone can live a life pleasing in God’s sight!

Everyone does “good” deeds. Yet, doing “good” is not necessarily good. For instance, people often do “good” just to receive praise/reward, make up for their wrongs, feel good, et cetera. Furthermore, despite our “good” deeds, we have plenty more bad ones! Pride, lying, evil thoughts, being a false witness, and being contentious are some of the things the LORD hates (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Mankind cannot even keep 10 simple rules from God. However, religion continues to urge us to keep seven sacraments, utter various prayers, give assorted offerings and “tithes,” attend numerous feasts and festivals, and perform sundry other tasks to “hopefully” please God and avoid hellfire. Whether we attempt to keep a church’s laws, our laws, or God’s laws, our flesh is far too weak to ever measure up. Just look at what God’s religion did to Israel—how much worse some man-made religion does to us!

As Saul of Tarsus, the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee, a religious leader of Israel. He was a nitpicker concerning Law-keeping, and yet, after his soul salvation, he admitted that all of his religion was “but dung” compared to Jesus Christ’s righteousness (Philippians 3:3-11). Even for the Christian, to live a perfect life is impossible (read of Paul’s miserable existence in Romans chapter 7). Paul had to forsake his vain religion and learn today’s Scripture: the Christian life is NOT the performance of the Christian, but the Lord Jesus Christ living and working in the Christian, as the Christian walks in an intelligent understanding of God’s Word to him or her!

If we trust a Saviour who will save—the Lord Jesus Christ—and trust a Book that will teach—the King James Bible—we can redeem the year for the great God and our Saviour, “who loved [us], and gave himself for [us]!”

A Book That Will Teach

Saturday, January 3, 2015

“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:13 KJV).

Today’s Scripture tells us who alone we can trust to teach us God’s truth!

Once, I heard a minister give his self-proclaimed “prophetic” message about top headlines that would appear in the coming year. While he reassured his audience that he received this information directly from “the Lord” (?), he gave a disclaimer: “I do not know, but at the end of this year, we will see if what I say came to pass.” Unlike the inner impressions and hunches of this “Christian” preacher, the Holy Bible is infallible, and we can trust its information completely.

Long, long ago, God Almighty wrote a Book, and He preserved it through history through a multiplicity of manuscript copies, so that it could eventually be translated into English, so we could read it even today! (Of course, Satan, the master counterfeiter that he is, most certainly had his own manuscripts—they still circulate today as corrupt Bible translations.) God promised to preserve His words forever (Psalm 12:6,7; Isaiah 30:8; Matthew 24:35; 1 Peter 1:25). Consequently, every person will stand before Him one day to give account as to what he or she did with that Bible. Did we reject it in favor of counterfeits? Did we re-translate it to fit our denominational beliefs? Did we apply it to life by faith? Did we even read it at all?

As English-speaking people, we understand—or, at least, we should understand—that we can trust the 400-year-old King James Bible. Sadly, even in many church circles, we are often cautioned not to trust God’s preserved Word. Unfortunately, footnotes, study notes, and seminarians usually attempt to claim that authority by offering “better” readings or “better” manuscripts. Beloved, we can do without unbelieving textual critics and their “scholarship.” God does not need lost people to explain His Word to His children; He never did and He never will (1 Corinthians 2:14). Never forget that!

The Holy Spirit will teach us the King James Bible if we “read” (Ephesians 3:4), “study” (2 Timothy 2:15), and “consider” it (2 Timothy 2:7)!

Redeem the Year!

Thursday, January 1, 2015

“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15-17 KJV).

What great advice for 2015!

Despite 2,000 years of Bible schools and seminaries, 2,000 years of a completed Bible canon, 2,000 years of Bible reading in churches, several decades of “Christian” television and radio, and just over a decade of widespread use of “Christian” websites, how sad that Bible ignorance is still quite extensive (it is as if God never gave His Word to start with!).

Frankly, the Church the Body of Christ needs to wake up! The verse previous to today’s Scripture says, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (verse 14). Paul, loosely quoting Isaiah 60:1, reminded us that the spiritual ignorance that gripped Israel in Isaiah’s day seized Christians in his day—and it still grips Christians 20 centuries later. Feel-good sermons, enjoyable “worship” services, and rites, rituals, and ceremonies will NOT solve this problem—they exacerbate it!

“[God] will have all men to be saved…” (1 Timothy 2:4a). Do you want this New Year to count for God’s glory? First, you need to get saved from sins and hell! You need to become a Christian by trusting in and relying on Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection as sufficient payment for your sins (1 Corinthians 15:3,4). That is only part of God’s will for you, for 1 Timothy 2:4b continues, “[God] will have all men… to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Now, God’s will for your Christian life is daily, personal Bible study to renew your mind, so your faith in those verses can cause God to work in your life—it will be His life, thus making you “perfect [spiritually mature], throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16,17).

Today’s Scripture urges us to buy back the time Satan has robbed from God (time created for God’s glory). By faith, we need to make that time glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by applying His Word, particularly Paul’s epistles of Romans through Philemon, to our lives. Have a good year in Christ! 🙂

You can download our free “One-Year Bible Reading Schedule.”

Our latest Bible Q&A: “What Scriptural advice can you give me for the New Year?”

The Person of the Year

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…” (Philippians 2:9,10a KJV).

Let us praise the 2014 Person of the Year—our Lord Jesus Christ!

Society’s most stressful time of year, the Christmas Season, is winding down. The year 2014 is nearly over, and a new year, 2015, will dawn soon. At this time every year, various groups and publications feature their particular choice for “Person of the Year.” Whether a chief of state, a philanthropist, a religious leader, a distinguished author or scientist, a television or radio personality, or some other “professional” who impacted society in a negative or positive way the most during the past year, they are all still people with limitations and frailties. One can accomplish all sorts of praiseworthy, generous, and awe-inspiring feats. However, what carries the most weight is the attitude, the heart, underlying the action, not the action. Was it Jesus Christ, or simply the flesh?

The one single event in history that pleased God the Father most was when His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, went by faith in His Word, to an awful Roman cross to suffer the worst possible and most graphic death a human ever experienced, to pay for our sins. “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). It is through that finished crosswork of Jesus Christ that He is still doing mighty works, 20 centuries later. How our Lord Jesus Christ has saved countless souls from sins and hell this past year, and how He has saved innumerable Christian souls from false doctrine and spiritual ruin.

Jesus Christ, who in death defeated His greatest enemy (Satan), was raised by God the Father and is now the ascended and glorified Lord Jesus Christ (today’s Scripture). Saints, may we ever thank and praise our Saviour Jesus Christ for what He has done for us, what He has done with us, and what He will do with us next year… and all the countless ages thereafter….

As we close another year of ministry, we look forward to serving you for another! 🙂

Scrooges and Christians

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV).

To the old identity, we say, “Bah, Humbug!” To the new, we say, “God has blessed us, everyone in Christ.”

Other than Jesus Christ’s conception and birth as found in the Holy Bible, there is one other classic story associated with Christmastime. British author Charles Dickens’ 1843 book, A Christmas Carol, focuses on the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge (the novella has some Christian influence).

From the onset, Scrooge is a wealthy, miserable, mean, stingy, and selfish old man. His employee, Bob Cratchit, is underpaid (yet, strangely, Ebenezer observes, Cratchit is cheerful). Scrooge refuses to donate to charities collecting for the destitute—to him, Christmastime is a time for others to “pick his pocket.” He even refuses to attend his nephew’s Christmas party. What a miser!

Through visitations by four Spirits—his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley; and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future—Scrooge is forced to realize what a thoroughly rotten man he is. Once confronted with his future, the awful events that lie ahead, he asks for another chance to make things right (which, thankfully, he receives and does!). The Scrooge at the end of the book is drastically different from the Scrooge at the beginning. Scrooge is now loving, warm, cheerful, and generous—he is a brand-new man.

Bible-believing Christians recognize parallels between Dickens’ work and the Holy Scriptures. The sinner starts off rotten, a rebel from birth—selfish, miserable, and mean. When he or she comes to realize that pitiful condition he or she is in, and comes by simple faith in Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork as sufficient payment for their sins, God gives him or her a new identity (today’s Scripture). That identity is designed to influence subsequent actions. Scrooge did not simply change his outward activity; he had a change in heart first. This Christmas, let us be submissive to God’s Holy Spirit working in our hearts, as He uses sound Bible doctrine to manifest in our behavior our identity in Christ, that we be not Scrooges. 🙂

‘Twas the Sunday Night Before Christmas

Sunday, December 21, 2014

“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15 KJV).

Let us not be so sidetracked by religion and commercialization that we miss the reason for the Christmas Season….

During the Christmas Season, we wonder how many people are visiting church for the second time this year (the other being Easter Sunday). How many will be going to church today—the Sunday before Christmas—just to feel “religious” or “holy?” How many really know Jesus Christ? For many, visiting a church building is just an obligation; they do not have faith in God’s Word and have no interest in God’s Word.

We do not go to church to “feel closer to God,” for if we have trusted in Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, we cannot be any closer to God than we already are in Christ! “[Before salvation, we were] without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh [close to God] by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:12,13).

Furthermore, we do not go to church in order to get God’s blessings, for God has already given us “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). We go to church, not because we are keeping Israel’s Sabbath day, since we are not obligated to observe Israel’s religious days (Colossians 2:16). We go to church to fellowship with like-minded believers and hear sound doctrine… more than twice a year, by the way.

In today’s Scripture, the Apostle Paul encouraged Timothy that whenever he would assemble with fellow Christians, certain behavior was acceptable and other types of behavior were not (described throughout the epistle of 1 Timothy). Recall that when the Bible refers to “the church,” it refers to the body of believers, not the physical building in which they meet.

As we get opportunities, let us make an effort to reach these dear souls misled by all the vain religious tradition and Christmas commercialization, and may we tell them of the wonderful Christ Jesus whose name is found in Christmas!

*Based on the poem “‘Twas the Sunday Night Before Christmas.”

Dear saints, only by God’s grace, we now stand at devotional #1300. We consider it an honor to have been able to share God’s Word with you every day for the last 1,300 days. Thank you for the encouragement and prayer, and we look forward to serving you in the future as His grace enables. Onward in Christ we go!

Third of five special-edition Christmas Bible Q&As: “Were there really three wise men?”