October 18, 2011

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."  Ezekiel 36:26

When God brings restoration, He doesn't stopwith the cleansing pat. He doesn't just remove our sins; He also heals and reives. He performs radical surgery on us, enabling His people to live in obedience to His Word. He gives us a "new heart" removing our "heart of stne" and giving us a "heart of flesh" - a heart that's alive and healthy and thriving.

The heart is not just one individual part of a person's makeup. It repesents our total personality. We use the term heart to refer to our mind, will and emotions. In the Bible it stands for the seat of our personality.

Jesus, you may remember, called the scribes and pharisees "'hypocrites'" because they honored Him with their lips "'but their heart is far from Me'" (Matthew 15:7-8 quoting Isaiah 29:13). These men, unrivaled in their obsession with ceremonial purty, were greatly offended. Christ's disciples, too, appeared somewhat shcoked by His implication. Didn't Jesus know that these mn had every appearance of holiness and uprightness? Yes, but Jesus kne more.He knew their evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies." (Matt. 15:19) and al the rest, and He knew from where these secret sins came. "From the heart" come the things that define a person. Our hearts tell us who we really are.

Israel's heart had become fossilized, like a stone, unfeeling and unresponsive. But God promised to do for them what they could not do or themselves. He would give hem a heart of flesh, a heat He could mold and move and fashion, a heart that cold hear Hi Word and react in obedience.

Will you pray this prayer that the Psalmist prayed?

"Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalms 139: 23-24

October 17, 2011

EKG Devotionals Day 16

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols."  Ezekiel 36:25

It's not enough for you to be rescued from your sins, to be pulled from harm's way and returned to safety. You must also be removed.

The promise of restoration comes hand in hand with amoral and spiritual change of heart. So God told His people Israel that they must be purified from the filthy buildup caused by their rebellion and idolatry. Ezekiel used the terminology of sprinkling with clean water, a reference to a temple reitual that symbolized spiritual uncleanness from the people. But this cleansing is much more that a "lick and a promise" you give yourself.

God's demands for holiness and purity have not changed since Ezekiel spoke these words. If you desire restoration today in your life and church, you must also allow the Father to cleanse you from your filthiness.

Study after study has indicated that the lifestyles chosen by many believers are much more like the world that like the Kingdom of God. Compromise with sin and worldly values has significantly dimished the impact of the witness of the Kingdom. It seems the Church today is in desparate need of this cleansing of heart and mind. The formula has never changed - never will, you must turn from your wickedness in true humility and allow God's Word to purify you. Just as Jesus asked the Father to sanctify the disciples with the truth of His Word (John 17:17), you too must seek the deep cleansing of God - if you are serious about being a Kingdom person.

October 16, 2011

Amy Biehl died a violent death in 1993. She was a 26-year-old Fulbright scholar who had gone to South Africa to help register black voters for their first free election. But even though she was seeking to help the people of South Africa, as she was driving one day, she was dragged out of her car, stabbed and beaten to death by a mob which was committed to violence in order to overthrow of the apartheid government. Soon afterward, Amy’s parents, Linda and Peter Biehl, quit their jobs and moved from their Orange County, California home to South Africa — not to seek revenge, but to start a foundation in Amy’s name. Today, two of her killers work for the foundation. They call Mrs. Biehl “Makhulu,” or grandmother, because of the way she treats them. She says, “Forgiving is looking at ourselves and saying, ‘I don’t want to go through life feeling hateful and vengeful, because that’s not going to do me any good.’ We took Amy’s lead. We did what we felt she would want.”

That is the picture of reconciliation. It not only forgives, it reaches out to restore. It pays back good for evil. It is following the heart and character of God. I am so grateful that God made the sacrifice to reconcile me to himself in spite of all that I have done, and now I want to follow Jesus and offer that same reconciliation to others — even those who may have harmed me.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT:

Repentance

Restitution

Redemption

Regeneration

Today, another great benefit of your salvation - Reconciliation

“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”  Romans 5:9-11

Paul is using a form of argument called a fortiori, or “how much more.” It basically works like this: If the greater thing is true, then the lesser thing is of necessity also true. If God has done the harder thing, then surely He will do the easier task. – EXAMPLES - verse 9: “Since we have now…how much more shall we be…” And verse 10: “For if when we were…how much more…” Even verse 11 employs something similar: “Not only…we also.”

Since God did the more difficult task of justifying weak, wayward and wicked sinners, then to rescue us from wrath is relatively effortless. We could say it this way: If God has already done the difficult, can we not trust Him to do the comparatively simple thing of completing the task?

TWO GREAT THOUGHTS – “WHAT WE HAVE” – “WHAT WE CAN HAVE” CHRISTIAN GROWTH AND CHURCH GROWTH MEANS DYNAMIC TENSION.

Look at verse 9: “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”

STATEMENT #1: “We Have Been Justified By His Blood,” V. 9

At conversion our sins are forgiven, and all charges against us are dropped. This is a legal term from the world of law ----- in God's eyes justification is "just as if I've never sinned."

Don’t miss the fact that we are saved by “His blood.” As the song says, “there is power in the blood” not in pop psychology or in other blather baptized in the waters of Christian words. Why is the blood of Jesus so important?

• There is no forgiveness without blood. Hebrews 9:22: “…Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

• The blood satisfies the Holy claims of God. Exodus 12:13: “…when I see the blood, I will pass over you.”

• The blood redeems the believer. 1 Peter 1:18-19: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”

• The blood cleanses us from sin. 1 John 1:7: “…the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

The blood of Jesus justifies us. That’s conviction #1. Here’s what that means:

Significance #1: We shall be saved from God’s wrath. God’s righteous wrath was unleashed on Jesus, who died as our substitute, in our place. The word “wrath” means “an inner, deep resentment that seethes and smolders.”

The word for saved means, “to deliver or preserve a person from extraordinary danger or destruction.” Loved ones, Jesus intercepted and absorbed the wrath of God for you on the cross, where all of God’s fury was poured out.

A man died and was transported to the pearly gates. He was met by an angel who said, “All you have to do is perform one task correctly and you’ll be granted entrance into heaven. It’s really pretty easy. All you have to do is spell ‘love.’”

The man sighed in relief and quickly answered: “L-O-V-E.” The angel then asked the man if he could watch the gate for a few minutes because he had a couple errands to run. The man immediately agreed. As he awaited the angel’s return, he saw another man walk up the pearly gates. He recognized him as someone he couldn’t stand when he was alive. In fact, he had incredible conflict with him for many years. Seeing who was manning the gates, the man became noticeablyanxious. The gatekeeper said, “Don’t worry, all you have to do is perform one task correctly and you’ll get in.” The man breathed a sigh of relief and said, “What do I have to do?” To which his enemy said, “Spell ‘chrysanthemum.’”

Aren’t you glad that there’s no human gatekeeper to God’s kingdom? Flawed people cannot judge whether someone makes it or not. The task that needs to be performed has already been completed by Christ. It’s through His blood that we have entrance. We are justified by Jesus through faith, and we’re saved from wrath because we’ve been declared righteous.

Verse 10 gives us the next pair of truths: “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”

STATEMENT #2: “We Are Reconciled By His Death”, V. 10

Before we come to Christ, the Bible says that we are at war with God. The word “enemy” was often used to describe bitter military foes and meant “hated, odious and hostile.” In our context, it would be like the U.S. and North Korea. Amazingly, Jesus now refers to us not as foes, but as friends in John 15:15: “I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I made known to you.” If God did all that He did for us when we were enemies, what will He do for us now that we are friends?

Significance #2: We are saved by His life.
 HOW?

BY THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION - Since a dead Savior can redeem us, don’t you think a living Savior can keep us? Christ not only gave His life for us, He gave His life to us

BY THE PATTERN OF HIS LIFE

BY THE POWER OF HIS PRESENCE

BY THE POWER OF HIS PRAYERS – “Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.”

This passage helps us see that there are three dimensions to our deliverance: past, present and future.

1) Justification

2) Sanctification

3) Glorification

First, we are justified by His blood and saved from His wrath.

Second, we are reconciled by His death and saved by His life.

Thirdly, verse 11 teaches that we have received reconciliation and therefore we rejoice in God:

STATEMENT #3: “We Have Received Reconciliation,” V. 11

Would you notice that reconciliation must be received in order for it to be activated in one’s life? God initiates reconciliation with His enemies and we are recipients only when we receive what He offers. John 1:12: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

Jesus said it this way in John 5:24: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” Perhaps you’ve been trusting in other methods but I’m here to tell you that if you’re in the wrong vehicle you’ll go to the wrong place.

Statement #3: We rejoice in God. The Greek word joy means “to exult and rejoice jubilantly, or to be thrilled.” Notice that we are to be thrilled with God Himself. This could be translated this way: “glorying in God.” Psalm 35:9: “Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD and delight in his salvation.”

ARE YOU REJOICING IN YOUR FAITH?

IF YOU AREN’T REJOICING IN RECONCILIATION – CONSIDER:

1) You have been justified by His blood and we shall be saved from God’s wrath.

2) You are reconciled by His death and we are saved by His life.

3) You have received reconciliation and we rejoice in God.

MAYBE YOU AREN’T REJOICING IN RECONCILIATION BECAUSE YOU DON’T REMEMBER THE ALIENATION AND ISOLATION AND SEPARATION CAUSED BY SIN…….

(PRODIGAL SON STORY ILLUSTRATES RECONCILIATION)

The son was hoping to get hired as a servant but got much more:
RELATIONSHIP - Father

RING – Authority To Do Business

ROBE – Righteousness

SANDALS – Son Not Slave

PARTY – Celebrate Return

You got all of that and more when you were reconciled with God through the blood of Christ!

October 15, 2011

“‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine. Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign LORD. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, people of Israel!" Ezekiel 36:24-32

In the middle of crisis, with Israel at its lowest ebb, Ezekiel declared God's intention to revive His people, to rally His Kingdom. Many years before, of course, God had redeemed Israel from Egypt. And by His transforming power, they had emerged not as a loose collection of families but as a nation, a kingdom of priests. And He was about to do it again.

The long night in Babylon would make another turning point in the life of Israel. They had been taken into captivity a proud nation, but they would emerge as a new spiritual entity, a revitalized remnant that would return home with a new and responsive heart, a transformed people who would possess God's Spirit within them.

What we are witnessing here is the forerunner of the New Testament church, God's messianic community. We are witnessing God's kingdom rousing from the appearance of sleep, yet marching (as always) to the beat of God's sovereign purpose and perfect timing. We are witnessing what happens when God revives us from our rebellion.

Revival always begins with a righteous remnant. We see this truth coming to vivid life in the prophecy of Ezekiel, through words and phrases that still have the power to renew our troubled souls. When we hear Ezekiel speaking to the people of Israel (Ezek. 36:24-38), promising them God's cleansing, His renewal, His empowerment, and His restoration to fruitful ministry, we can feel our own sins falling away, the tug of temptation lossening its grip, and our spirits taking deep breaths of hope, vision and freshness.

This is the kingdom, this is the power of God rushing through our veins, restoring our weak and damaged arteries, perfoming His sovereign act of revival so that His kingdom can pour forth through us in power.

Take a moment to let the truth of God's forgiveness penetrate your soul. Whatever your sin, god's promise is that you can be clean and a vital part of His kingdom.

October 14, 2011

EKG Devotional Day 13

When God acts in human history, it is always for our good and His glory. Lest you wonder which one of these is the most important of the two, God's glory always comes first.

For exmple, when God began to ove on behalf of His people being held captive in Balylon, He made clear through the prophet Ezekiel that "it is not for your sake that I will act, house of Israel, but for My holy name, which you profaned among the nations where you went." Exekiel 36:22.

Their deliverance was about God's desire that the ntions see and come to know Him as the living God. Everything is about God, and His kingdom people must embrace His mission as their own.

Like Israel, we are tempted to think that we are the center of the universe, that our desires and prayers determine God's agenda. Part of me wishes this were true. This kind of message has an immediate appeal. But when I consider the end result of this kind of theology - the self-centered emptiness of expecting God to bow to your personal wishes - I don't want any part of what it offers. It's like peeling away the layers of an onion, working our way furher down into ourselves until there's nothing left to show for all of our struggle.

When we pray that God will be glorified, He will send us deliverance, or faithfulness, patience, strength, wisdom - whatever is required to reveal His presence and draw oters to Him. The sooner we understand that God is King - that He alone is the cener of the universe - the sooner we'll come to experience the freedom of living in His kind of purpose and protection. It is indeed the only way to live.

Do you have self-serving layers you need to strip away to see that God is King and the center of the universe? What must change to make Him the center of your universe?

October 13, 2011

EKG Devotional Day 12

"When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the LORD, she came to test Solomon with hard questions. Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great caravan—with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones—she came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at[a] the temple of the LORD, she was overwhelmed. She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard. How happy your people must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the LORD’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.”  I Kings 10:1-9

Soon after the dedication of the magnificent temple in Jerusalem, the Queen of Sheba traveled 1,500 miles from the Persian Gulf region, her camel caravan loaded down with spices abd precious gifts. She ame partly because she had heard of the wisdom of Solomon. But she had come for more of a reason than that! "When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the LORD, she came to test Solomon with hard questions."

The temple was impressive. Solomon's splendor was immense. But the thing that turned the head of the queen was the incredible stamp of God on the life of one of His people. That's why, after sufficiently picking his brain, she concluded the rumors she had heard of Solomon's brilliance didn't tell half the story. This pagan queen recognized God's blessing in Solomon's life, saying,  "Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the LORD’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.”

God's name is visible in His people, even from a distance. We continue to see througout he Scripture the weaving together of three threads:

1. God called a people to embrace His mission - to be His chosen instruments in drawing the nations to Himself.

2. He established a covenant realationship with them so they would embody His name and represent His nature and character to the world.

3. He commanded that they obey His Word and demonstrate holiness, the noticeable difference He made in their lives.

You can be a welcoming reminder that God is waiting for those tired of slogging through a world of sin and disappointments. Let them see God's light in your window. It may seem as impressive as Solomon's temple.

October 12, 2011

EKG DAY 11 DEVOTIONAL

The name we bear is the only that will last forever. That's why we cannot talk about God's name without a final glimpse at the promise on an eternal kingdom. When the Lord told David that he would establish the work of Solomon's hands in building the temple, he went on to say that he would "'appoint him over My house and My kingdom forever, and his throne will be established forever'" (I Chronicles 17:14)

We know now that the Lord's reference to "forever" in His message to David found its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus, the Son of David....who was born in Bethlehem, the city of David....and who lives forever on the throne of his Father's kingdom. We, too, will live with him forever.

Still, we may long to see in our lifetime the fulfillment of all the things God has started in us. But neither we nor God's kingdom are limited to a human lifetime. Because we will walk on streets of gold and live forever in the glory of God's eternal kingdom, we can live free frim the restraints of now and next week.

Yes, those of us who embody His name today can already enjoy a taste of His eternal kingdom. We live and serve and work and play in a kingdom that has no boundaries, no restrictions, no limits, and no end. This joyful task of embodying God's name places us squarely in the middle of God's will for this hour and forever in the freedom of His purposes for eternity.

Someone may ask you, "How can you be nice to that guy after he's been so awful to you?" or, "How are you able to be so patient with your children?" or, "Why does your family seem so happy and connected?" If they do then there's a name for what they see in you.

His name is JESUS!