Category: spiritual growth and maturity

Delight in the Light

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

“Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors” (Psalm 119:24 KJV).

Let us delight in the Holy Bible’s spiritual light!

While shopping at a store recently, I could hear a young child pitching a fit in the distance but who was drawing closer to me. Then I saw him. In tears, this three- or four-year-old boy was walking around and repeatedly exclaiming, “I want a toy!” No matter what his parents were telling him, he would not be dissuaded. He still remembered what he wanted and he continued to whine for it. He had such delight and such determination. He wanted a toy!

If only everyone in the world were so fervent in seeking soul salvation unto eternal life through Jesus Christ, rather than focusing so much on this temporary world about us! If only all Christians would be so desirous of Bible understanding, rather than dedicating so much time and effort on concentrating on that which will pass away! To think that a child would value a temporary item so much when the average adult gives far less thought concerning things of eternal value.

Think of the many people who take lightly the topics of soul salvation from eternal hellfire unto eternal life and soul salvation from false teaching unto spiritual maturity. They have no idea that they are lost and they have no hint that they are not where they need to be in their spiritual understanding. We have to tell them God’s truth!

I am reminded of a Christian brother who has since “relocated to heaven,” how he used to be so eager to learn God’s truth. He would repetitively utter about spiritual matters, “Give me nothing but the truth. I want to hear the truth.” In this day of “itching ears,” such a plea is rarely heard (2 Timothy 4:3,4). The Psalmist of today’s Scripture desired, recognized, and delighted in the truth. He took great pleasure in the solemn declarations of JEHOVAH God, utilizing His written words as his advisers. Beloved, may we desire, seek, find, and enjoy the preserved words of God in English, the King James Bible, and may we share it with others so they can delight in it, too! 🙂

Planting and Watering in God’s Garden

Thursday, July 24, 2014

“I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:6 KJV).

God is growing the plants; we are here to simply plant and water them!

The other day I talked with a Christian brother in the ministry who expressed his desire to see an immediate conversion in the life of one particular lost person steeped in a cult. He wanted to see that person saved the very next day!

Let us read today’s Scripture within its context: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building” (verses 6-9).

The Apostle Paul first visited Corinth in Acts chapter 18; here, some pagans had heard Paul preach the Gospel of God’s Grace, and they trusted Jesus Christ unto justification and eternal life. In late Acts chapter 18 and early chapter 19, Apollos, a new Christian and Bible teacher, came to Corinth and taught these newly-saved Corinthians. In today’s Scripture, Paul refers to these events. He had “planted” (soul salvation unto eternal life, God giving the believing sinner, Christ’s life) and Apollos had “watered” (soul salvation unto sound doctrine, the saint allowing Christ’s life to manifest in his or her own life). Whether it was passing from death to life, or learning about the life we have in Christ, it was ultimately God Almighty’s task to generate the results—it is NOT our responsibility to force people to be saved or spiritually mature.

Many people never trust Jesus Christ; many Christians never study their Bibles and mature spiritually. Yet, it takes some people many years before they trust Jesus Christ; it takes some Christians many years before they study the Bible for themselves. Beloved, people prayed for us without ever seeing results in their lifetime. Let us not be so self-willed as to think that God must satisfy us by rushing His work in people to whom we minister. 🙂

Tossed To and Fro

Monday, July 21, 2014

“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;” (Ephesians 4:14 KJV).

Art thou “tossed to and fro?” To the King James Bible thou must go!

The following recent quotation from a church leader typifieth the dire spiritual condition of the average church leader and church member: “For years I bounced around between different translations, using one with my Sunday school students, one at the office (with multiple translations) and a King James version of the New Testament and Psalms that I read on my subway commute.” “Bouncing around between different translations?!” Today’s Scripture saith that this is the very opposite of what the Lord Jesus Christ desireth for His people!

The Greek word translated “tossed to and fro” in today’s Scripture is kludonidzomai. It is related to the word, “raging of the water” in Luke 8:24 (the offshore storm Jesus calmed), and “he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed” in James 1:6 (describing a double-minded man). Today’s Scripture portrayeth such imagery—a soul violently pushed around in one direction by one doctrine, another doctrine coming along and forcing the soul to drift in a totally different direction (repeat cycle).

Not surprisingly, one reason why church members abandon Christianity is because of the Bible versions issue: they know not what to believe and simply recant the Bible altogether. The King James Bible believer is not the troublemaker; those who ridicule God’s preserved Word in English and attempt to supplant it with 200 (!) contradictory counterfeits are the ones causing the confusion and ignorance.

Dear readers, God gave us His Word so we could have soul stability; Satan wanteth to take it from us so we can fall for his error. Beloved, modern Bible translators and publishers want to make “a quick buck” at the cost of your souls, so do not let them! Settle thy feet on the rock of the King James Bible rightly divided…. all else is sure to “wash out to sea!” 🙂

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.

Aerial Attack! #11

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

“And let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the LORD go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines” (2 Samuel 5:24 KJV).

Some 3,000 years ago, Israel had aerial military support, and it is only a preview of the “fighter jets” yet to come!

Remember Psalm 68 enumerates Jesus Christ’s Second Coming, to redeem Israel and restore His headship in the Earth. Notice verses 17 and 18: “[17] The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. [18] Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.”

The Apostle Paul quoted Psalm 68:18 in Ephesians 4:8. Understand that these two verses are not describing the same event, but two similar events in two separate programs.

Read Ephesians 4:7-10: “[7] But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. [8] Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. [9] (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? [10] He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)”

After Jesus Christ ascended into heaven (Acts chapter 1), He then “ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.” He began the Body of Christ with Saul of Tarsus (the Apostle Paul) in Acts chapter 9, and “gave” (notice, past tense) the members of the early Body of Christ spiritual gifts (listed in Ephesians 4:11), gifts to disseminate a body of doctrine (verses 12-16) that would form a group of mature saints (Body of Christ) who would fill up “all things” (governmental offices in heavenly places [see Colossians 1:16-20] which Satan has polluted [Ephesians 2:2; Ephesians 6:12]).

Jesus Christ will restore His headship in the heavenly places, similar to how He will reestablish His authority on Earth….

Your “Home” Grace Church

Thursday, July 3, 2014

“These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: 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 3:14,15 KJV).

Searching “to no avail” for a local grace church? (Search no more, for you already know its address!)

Replying to yesterday’s devotional, one of our readers emailed me. Like so many we hear from, she voiced her discouragement and asked where she should “go to church” when no pure local church could be found! My family and I were in a similar predicament years ago, until I heard a Christian brother and ministry coworker say, “Walk out your front door, stand in your front yard, turn around, and voila—your local grace church building!” 🙂

Until organized religion began to dominate Christianity during the first few centuries A.D., and construction began on elaborate cathedrals and other monuments to man’s “goodness,” God’s people met in homes. We read about the “church” that met in Rome in Priscilla and Aquila’s house (Romans 16:3-5)—note, not Peter’s house! Scripture also mentions the “church” in Nymphas’ house in Laodicea (Colossians 4:15), and the “church” in Philemon’s house in Colosse (Philemon 2).

In Paul’s ministry, a “church” was not a building, for the God of the Bible lives in Christians instead of manmade structures (Acts 17:24). “If therefore the whole church be come together into one place…” (1 Corinthians 14:23)—the “church” is not the place, but the Christians in the place. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).

As King James Bible-believing, Pauline-dispensational Christians, we are God’s church. Our homes are where the “church” meets! If we have no teacher or pastor, we can locate sound grace Bible study material and utilize it (you are more than welcome to use our studies). We have no desire to attend “worship services” that abound with denominationalism and religious tradition, so we stay at home with our Bibles and invite any like-minded Christians to join us!

Meat and Bones

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21 KJV).

Eat the meat but do not choke on the bones!

A discouraged Christian friend once emailed me to explain his dilemma. He had discovered a source that contained sound Bible doctrine and church tradition. He recognized the doctrinal error, yet he was so disturbed that he was questioning everything in the source (even the sound doctrine). My advice to him was simple, “Eat the meat but do not choke on the bones!” (The same advice conveyed in unique phraseology was also helpful to me when I was in the same predicament years earlier.)

Having visited our local “Christian” bookstore recently, I could not help but chuckle at much of the literature I saw there. There were shelves after shelves after shelves of volumes that had nothing to do with the God of the Holy Bible, nothing to do with the Holy Bible, nothing to do with the Christian life God has given us in Christ. If were were to purge today’s average “Christian” bookstore of everything non-Christian, doubtless the store would soon declare bankruptcy!

Since organized religion has corrupted pure Christianity, Christendom is a spiritual minefield—it is dotted with thousands of gimmicks, heresies, and other traps. If the Christian is to survive Satan’s military tactics and assaults, he or she must be grounded in God’s Word rightly divided. The Christian must always remember that the Holy Bible rightly divided is the “minesweeper,” detecting and destroying the mines that would otherwise destroy the Christian. As today’s Scripture says, we need to sort truth from error. Our standard as English-speaking Christians is the King James Bible rightly divided. That which fails the test is worthless, so we toss it out; that which passes the test is “good,” so we retain it!

Dear saints, we will never find a perfect local church, but that is not our desire anyway. We “make no bones about it”—we seek a pure church, for that is what the Holy Spirit desires us to have (2 Corinthians 6:14-18; 2 Corinthians 11:1-20). We seek neither “milk” nor bones, but “meat” (1 Corinthians 3:2)! 🙂

The Wafer Versus The Loaf

Sunday, June 8, 2014

“For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27 KJV).

In today’s Scripture, the Apostle Paul demonstrated that all church leaders should not neglect to tell their congregants all of God’s counsel.

Recently, I listened to a now-saved minister expose the absurdities that he learned in seminary (“Bible cemetery”), while he was in training to become a church leader in a major “Christian” denomination, a cult he served for decades. By God’s grace, the dear man came to realize that his “good” works were nothing in God’s sight: he came to understand and trust the totality of Jesus Christ’s perfect sacrifice for his sins.

Having left that rank spiritual darkness that he was in for many years, he looks back and sees just how lost he really was back then, how he was on his way to hell, how he was so misled, even though he faithfully read the Holy Scriptures to his congregations for all those years. As per his denomination’s instructions, he meticulously followed their “approved” reading schedule of Scripture. Despite all those many years of (repetitive) sermons, he actually read what amounted to a mere five percent of the entire Bible, to all those precious souls in his church! He sees how he was only allowed to read the verses that agreed with the denominational system; they simply ignored the Bible passages that conflicted with their church!

Dearly beloved, there are hundreds of thousands of “churches” worldwide that are just like this, literally spiritually starving their millions upon millions of members, depriving them of the entire counsel of God, yet giving them just enough morsels in order to fool them into believing they are hearing everything that God has spoken to them.

In light of the spiritual darkness all around us, let us never take for granted our soul salvation from our sins and works-religion, our rightly divided King James Bible, our local grace assemblies, and the faithful saints who serve our Lord Jesus Christ in sharing the message of His grace with all the millions upon millions who desperately need it. May we choose the loaf, and reject the wafer!

333’s 1100th – An Edifice Under Construction

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

“For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12 KJV).

Only by Jesus Christ’s grace, we mark another ministry milestone!

Recently, an individual expressed to me her disdain for “religion” in general. Her main objection was that there were many contradictory denominations of “Christianity.” I proceeded to politely explain to her that she, like many, was unaware of the distinction between pure Christianity and vain Christendom. She needed to understand that Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon, alone describe Christianity, God’s current directions and program; everything else in the Bible is Israel’s program.

Beloved, when religionists combine the two programs in Scripture—that is, pick and choose doctrines from “prophecy” and “mystery”—they create Christendom, a spiritual monster, a monstrosity of misquoted Scripture, pagan nonsense, and a host of other errors. Christendom is a system that will devour (and has overwhelmed) Christian and non-Christian souls alike. Any appeal to Scripture seems utterly hopeless, for every denomination is quoting a Bible verse to support its system!

During these last 1100 days, we hope to have been a help and an encouragement to you. The Apostle Peter, in his second and final epistle, wrote about “unlearned and unstable” souls “wresting” (twisting, distorting, perverting) the Scriptures—particularly, Paul’s epistles—and “beguiling [tricking, deceiving] unstable souls” (2 Peter 2:14; 2 Peter 3:16). Basically, unstable souls making other people’s souls unsteady also; the result is a group of vacillating individuals, “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight [fraud!] of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Ephesians 4:14, the context of today’s Scripture).

God wants “perfected” saints (today’s Scripture), saints who are spiritually mature, “throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:17), saints who can do “the work of the ministry,” who can “edify” (build up, mature) the Church the Body of Christ. In doing so, God’s people will be guarded against doctrinal error, Satan’s policy of evil. Thus, by God’s grace, we will continue in our daily Bible studies, that you may save yourself and others from false teaching (1 Timothy 4:16).

Onward we go in God’s grace! 🙂

Quit You Like Men!

Saturday, May 31, 2014

“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all your things be done with charity” (1 Corinthians 16:13,14 KJV).

What does our King James Bible mean when it admonishes, “Quit you like men?”

“Quit you like men” appears twice in our King James Bible—1 Samuel 4:9 and today’s Scripture. We need not complain of “old-fashioned” verbiage; we need not run to lexicons or modern versions for clarification. What we need to do is let God’s Word define its vocabulary for us. When exhorting “quit you like men,” today’s Scripture simultaneously defines the term for us. “Stand fast,” “men,” and “strong” convey the idea of maturity: only mature people stand fast, men are adults, only mature people (adults) are strong. The larger context of today’s Scripture—the epistle of 1 Corinthians—explains why the Apostle Paul concluded that book with such an exhortation.

Corinth, a seaport near Athens, Greece, had a grace Christian church Paul personally founded in Acts chapter 18. Unfortunately, these believers ignored most of the doctrine Paul delivered them. Their spiritual immaturity was so severe that they could not resolve simple conflicts amongst themselves, they ignored God’s Word to them and embraced pagan philosophy instead, they fell into devil worship, they abandoned the doctrine of bodily resurrection that Paul had personally taught them, and they abused spiritual gifts—among many other errors that still plague Christendom today!

“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able” (1 Corinthians 3:1,2). Paul wrote these Christians a lengthy doctrinal letter, 1 Corinthians, encouraging them to grow up! He concluded by telling them that they needed to act like spiritual adults (today’s Scripture); they needed to place their faith in that epistle, and stand fast in that doctrine, to gain the charity (love in action) they lacked (1 Corinthians 13:1-13). They were to “fight the good fight of faith” as mature soldiers of Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 6:12; cf. 1 Samuel 4:9).

Saints, may we by faith obey today’s Scripture delivered us.