Category: Calvary’s cross

God’s Grace on Parade

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

“…But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20 KJV).

Today, especially here in southern Louisiana, the Catholic festival of Mardi Gras takes advantage of God’s grace. God’s grace abounds even when drunkenness, lasciviousness, and gluttony are committed overtly on our streets for religion. Because we live in the Dispensation of the Grace of God, they can flaunt their sin without being consumed by fire from heaven!

“Mardi Gras,” French for “Fat Tuesday,” is a day when religious people—professing “Christians”—lose self-control (excess alcohol, food, and partying). The following day, Ash Wednesday, they promise to live “holy” for the next 40 days (Lent). A priest will then place ashes on their foreheads proving that God forgave them for that riotous living. Blasphemy!

Regardless of all its biblical allusions (illusions!), Mardi Gras is still evil and anti-God. It was never Christian, originating from pagan Roman festivals, Saturnalia and Lupercalia (interestingly known for riots, drunkenness, gluttony, and fornication, and subsequent repentance).

The Holy Spirit, speaking through the Apostles Peter and Paul, was clearly against Mardi Gras reveling and drunkenness (Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:18; 1 Peter 4:3). So why do professing Christians engage in the very activities that God the Holy Spirit condemned?! As Christians, we should “deny” the activities of Mardi Gras (Romans 6:11-15; Titus 2:11-15).

If I appear offended, I am. Mardi Gras, despite its godly façade, is offensive to the great God and my Saviour Jesus Christ! God’s grace continues to tolerate such foolishness from mankind. Man parades his sin, and God parades His grace, holding back wrath.

Are you a Mardi Gras reveler? I declare unto you the wonderful Gospel of the Grace of God. God did for you at Calvary what you could never do: “Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He was raised again the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Jesus Christ shed His sinless blood and died to put away all of your sins, Mardi Gras revelry included.

If you rest in Christ Jesus alone as your Saviour, God will save you forever, make a trophy of His grace, and then YOUR life will be God’s grace on parade!

*Adapted from a larger Bible study with the same name. The Bible study can be read here or watched here.

In Evil Long I Took Delight #6

Friday, February 13, 2015

“To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26 KJV).

The final verse of John Newton’s classic 1779 hymn “In Evil Long I Took Delight” highlights today’s Scripture.

“Thus, while His death my sin displays
In all its blackest hue,
Such is the mystery of grace,
It seals my pardon too.”

It is common today to see beautiful jewelry crosses hanging around people’s necks and arms. They give us a false impression of Calvary. It was not a pretty sight to see the Creator God hanging, suffering, and dying for people who hated Him with passion unspeakable. Calvary was a cruel hill where Father God’s wrath against our sin, was revealed. The same wrath that lost people are facing in hell right this moment, the wrath that they will experience throughout the endless ages to come, it was that wrath that was poured out on Jesus Christ at Calvary. There was no anesthetic or dilution. Yes, it was a dark, glum, terrible place, but in such circumstances of apparent weakness and defeat, there was the most amazing victory to ever “grace” the planet.

The glorious aspect of the doctrine of “vicarious atonement” is that Someone else made us “at-one-ment” with Almighty God. The God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, so graciously took our sin debt away because we had nothing with which to pay! Moreover, He did not merely get us out of spiritual debt (forgiveness), but His resurrection was the receipt that the debt was gone. There was not so much as one sin to hold Him in the grave. Hence, the Bible says He was “raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:25). It was with Jesus Christ resurrected that we were raised again and declared righteous. Never again will God “impute sin” to us who trust Christ alone (verse 8; cf. today’s Scripture). Our spiritual debt has been paid! We are now alive “to walk in newness of life.” Now, instead of delighting in evil, we can joy in our identity in Christ! What a concept! 🙂

In Evil Long I Took Delight #4

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6 KJV).

The fourth verse of John Newton’s classic 1779 hymn “In Evil Long I Took Delight” highlights today’s Scripture.

“My conscience felt and owned the guilt,
And plunged me in despair,
I saw my sins His blood had spilt,
And helped to nail Him there.”

Throughout history, Jews have been derogatorily called “the Christ-killers.” While Scripture emphatically affirms Jews rejected their Messiah Jesus, it also says that Gentiles participated in Jesus’ death: Israel wanted the Lord Jesus dead and Rome carried out the death penalty (Psalm 2:1-3; cf. Acts 4:25-28). Calvary was a national and an international conspiracy. Not only so, it was a personal issue—we all played a role in Calvary. It was our sins that sent Jesus Christ to that awful cross: as it is said, “Our hands held the hammers that drove the spikes into His hands and feet!”

It was in God’s grand design to use Israel’s rejection of Messiah and Rome’s rejection of Messiah to bring about the death of Messiah: “For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:28). “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:23). Now, with Paul’s revelation, we can see the full picture (what God saw all along but only now discloses to us): “[Jesus Christ] 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). It was Father God who ultimately killed Jesus Christ, who shed His blood for our forgiveness (Colossians 1:14).

Rather than beating ourselves up with guilt and shame, we need to trust Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork where He took our guilt and shame and covered them with His sinless blood. No, He did not die for the righteous, but for the weak and ungodly (today’s Scripture). He died for us, those who, like Saul of Tarsus, delight in evil….

Thee and Two Gardens #7

Friday, January 30, 2015

“Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus…” (John 19:41,42a KJV).

Wilt thou choose to “live” in the Garden of Eden, or in the Garden of Calvary?

Romans chapter 6 declares that our Christian life cannot begin until God reckons us dead in Christ’s tomb: “[1] What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? [2] God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? [3] Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ [not water!] were baptized into his death?”

“[4] Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: [6] Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. [7] For he that is dead is freed from sin.”

“[8] Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: [9] Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. [10] For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. [11] Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Saints, you can live in the Garden of Eden, where you indeed live, and if it is you living, your Christian life will be dead, unable to bring God glory. Or, you can live in the Garden of Calvary, where you indeed die, and if it is you who are dead, your Christian life will live for Jesus Christ will live His life in you, thus glorifying Father God. By faith, let us choose the latter garden… it alone bears good fruit! 🙂

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Are deceased Christians with the Lord yet?”

Thee and Two Gardens #6

Thursday, January 29, 2015

“And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8 KJV).

Wilt thou choose to “live” in the Garden of Eden, or in the Garden of Calvary?

Many precious souls constantly think about symbols, tithes and offerings, confessionals, aisles, candles, prayer closets, “scholarship,” altars, programs, holy days, counterfeit Bibles, personalities and celebrities, ecclesiastical laws, baptisteries, pilgrimages, dreams and visions, bread and wine, jewelry, statues, “praise and worship,” charities, vestments, healings, paintings, shrines, gibberish, patristic writings, and other theological speculations and paraphernalia.

As Satan distracted Eve, so she knew not God’s Word to her (the context of today’s Scripture), “Christianity” is similarly confused. Most are so sidetracked that they have no time whatsoever to think about Calvary’s real meaning. They are too busy thinking about what they are doing, so they have no time to think about what God did for them 2,000 years ago.

Friends, apart from faith in Calvary’s finished crosswork, we have no power of God in our lives (1 Corinthians 1:18,23,24). Fulfilling rules and regulations does not change the fact that we are still weak children of Adam, sinners by birth, unable to perform perfectly. Thus, sin-management systems are of no help to us. We need divine intervention to overcome sin.

God’s grand design is that our Christian life begin in a tomb. He alone can crucify us so as to separate us from Adam, to bury us in Christ’s tomb, to raise us again with Christ and give us a new nature in Him. Contrary to human “wisdom,” it is God’s wisdom, thinking on a much higher plane than even what the “best” intellectuals and philosophers could ever imagine. God did not come to correct us, but to crucify us with Christ, and He did not come to reform us but to resurrect us with Christ. It is not outward reformation (religion) but inward regeneration (life in Christ Jesus!).

We conclude this devotionals arc by quoting Romans chapter 6….

Thee and Two Gardens #4

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

“And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8 KJV).

Wilt thou choose to “live” in the Garden of Eden, or in the Garden of Calvary?

Once Adam and Eve recognized their sin problem, they “sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons” (verse 7). Rather than seek God’s help, they attempted to cover up their problem by themselves. This was religion’s first appearance—sinful man trying to bind himself back to the holy God he offended. Their efforts failed, and they thus hid from God (today’s Scripture).

Even today, the average person ignores God’s solution to our sin problem (Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork). He or she tries everything else to deal with their sin—water baptism, prayer, alms, confession, commandment keeping, apathy, denial, et cetera. Religion failed Adam and Eve, and Israel. Dear friends, religion will profit us nothing either. If religion were useful, Jesus Christ would have stayed in heaven! Because Jesus came and died, we know religion is literally fruitless concerning the righteous fruit God demands. Religion brings nothing but irritation and heartache, just as the itchy fig leaves bothered Adam and Eve. Again, even while wearing prickly fig-leaf coverings, they knew they were naked spiritually, and hid amongst the trees as soon as they heard righteous JEHOVAH Elohim coming their way (today’s Scripture)!

To have the righteous works God demands, we must die, which is where Calvary’s cross enters the picture: “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). By simple faith in Calvary’s finished crosswork, God kills us. He can do nothing with our flesh, our identity in Adam, so He gives us a new identity in Christ! Oh, what joy, what peace, what liberty, what holiness we now have. Strangely, our life begins in a tomb, the tomb of the Garden of Calvary….

Thee and Two Gardens #3

Monday, January 26, 2015

“And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8 KJV).

Wilt thou choose to “live” in the Garden of Eden, or in the Garden of Calvary?

Today’s Scripture shows us what living in the Garden of Eden is like. After sin entered into the world by Adam’s disobedience (Romans 5:12), the Garden was a place of misery, fear, and hiding. What God had designed to be paradise was now in shambles. Many of us today find the Christian life to be equally frustrating and glum—what God intended to be a blessing is such a heartache!

How could something God have made, be so unpleasant? It is miserable because we make it! As Adam ruined the Garden of Eden with his performance, so we wreck the Christian life when we try in our strength to live righteously. We add church rules, denominational burdens, to try to make God happy with us when He has already accepted us in Jesus Christ forever (Ephesians 1:6). What a shame that most Christians live like spiritual paupers when they are spiritually rich in Christ (2 Corinthians 8:9)! They beg God for forgiveness when they already have it in Christ (Colossians 1:14)! They beg God for blessings when they already have them all in Christ (Ephesians 1:3)! They beg God for strength and victory when they already have it in Christ (Philippians 4:13)! Religion is indeed “weak and beggarly” (Galatians 4:9)!

Dear readers, mentally, we need to leave the Garden of Eden. Our identity does not go back to Adam. We are no longer in Adam, but are forever “in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our identity goes back to Jesus Christ’s garden tomb at Calvary. In that garden, not Eden, do we find the fruits of our (Christ’s) resurrection life! Our life should abound with good works, not to make God happy with us, but because He is working inside of us, because we are simply living in accordance with our identity in Jesus Christ. That mindset will surely change our lifestyle….

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Was God unfair in striking Uzzah dead?”

Thee and Two Gardens #2

Sunday, January 25, 2015

“And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8 KJV).

Wilt thou choose to “live” in the Garden of Eden, or in the Garden of Calvary?

Dear friends, we act according to our identity. If we are in Adam, we will act just like Adam did; our sin nature will dominate us and we will live in sin. In Adam, we have no freedom and no power not to sin. That was before we trusted Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour. Now, we are “new creature[s] in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17)—we have a new identity in Christ.

If we “mind the things of the flesh,” we will act fleshly, but if we “mind the things of the Spirit,” we will act spiritual (Romans 8:1-15). We can think like lost people, and thus act like lost people, or we can think like Christians and thus act like Christians. To think like the Holy Spirit, we must have faith in an intelligent understanding of God’s Word to us.

As 2 Corinthians 5:14,15 says: “[14] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: [15] And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” Christian living is based on a thinking process. You have to “judge” (conclude, reckon as true, count it as reality) that your life should bring glory to the Person who died and rose again in order to give you that new life!

If we believe our identity in Christ to be reality, we will act just like Jesus Christ did: our new identity will bear fruit (righteousness) as our old identity produced fruit (sins). The “fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:9-11), the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22,23), will result. It is in the Garden of Calvary that we find fruit pleasing to God….

Thee and Two Gardens #1

Saturday, January 24, 2015

“Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus…” (John 19:41,42a KJV).

Wilt thou choose to “live” in the Garden of Eden, or in the Garden of Calvary?

Long ago, in the Middle East, specifically the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, our parents, died spiritually. Their spirits, once alive with God’s life, now dead, unable to function as He created them, now operating apart from His purpose. Their souls, formerly enlightened with God’s Word, now darkened, unable to function as He created them, now operating without any purpose. Their physical bodies, once able to do God’s will, now depraved, unable to live forever as He created them, working slower and eventually ceasing activity altogether. How it broke God’s heart to see mankind go the way of Satan!

Long ago, in the Middle East, near the Garden of Calvary, our Saviour died physically. His Spirit went back to Father God in heaven (Luke 23:46). His soul descended into the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40). His physical body was removed from the cross and prepared for burial. In today’s Scripture, His broken-hearted disciples brought His lifeless body to a nearby garden tomb, a new tomb that wealthy Joseph of Arimathaea had purchased for himself. They sealed the grave with a great stone (Matthew 27:57-60). On the third day, Jesus Christ burst from that tomb in resurrection power—alive forevermore, victorious over death, sin, Satan, and hell!

Those who witnessed these events thousands of years ago, they did not realize that God, for special reasons now known to us, had them included in His Word and plan for mankind. With the completed canon of Scripture in hand, we can see what He was doing. Saints, by considering these two great events in Scripture, we can actually see the difference between flesh-living and grace-living. One lifestyle is exclusive to the Garden of Eden while the other is limited to the Garden of Calvary. It is our faith in these verses that determines what lifestyle we experience on planet Earth….

Roasted with Fire

Friday, January 23, 2015

“And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof” (Exodus 12:8,9 KJV).

Israel will learn 15 centuries later why JEHOVAH told them to roast the Passover lamb.

Throughout Moses’ five books—the “Torah,” “Pentateuch,” Genesis through Deuteronomy—we see glimpses of Jesus Christ’s life and ministry, some 1,500 years beforehand. Today’s Scripture is a graphic portrait, Him not simply being nailed to a cross and suffering immense physical pain, but a crushing force inside, His soul experiencing such a radical transformation that it is just as horrific as the sight of His disfigured body. Oh, what Israel has done to Him! Oh, what Rome has done to Him! Oh, what we have done to Him! Oh, what Father God is now doing to Him!

Today’s Scripture says that, after the Passover lamb was killed and bled, its entire body was to be roasted with fire, and finally eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Every Passover, every year, JEHOVAH God was rehearsing for Israel what would happen to His only begotten Son in their land on a cruel cross. He never told them exactly what Passover meant until after Calvary happened, but we can look back and see the blueprints were all there.

Messiah Jesus cried out from Calvary’s cross in Matthew 27:46, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Quoting Psalm 22:1, Jesus signifies this psalm is Messianic, descriptive of what was going through His mind and heart as He hung there. “But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people” (Psalm 22:6). What lost people experience in hell (Isaiah 66:24; Mark 9:44,46,48), Jesus literally felt it in His soul while on Calvary’s cross. Our sin was placed on His soul, and then God’s righteous fury was poured out on it: “[Father God] made [Jesus’] soul an offering for sin” (Isaiah 53:10). His soul was completely heated in God’s judgment, as the Passover lamb was thoroughly roasted.

Oh, what a great sacrifice! Oh, what a great Saviour!