Hiding His Word In Our Hearts

"Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." - Psalm 119:11

First, let me say that it is good to be back blogging!  Last week we had a Prophecy Conference at FBC with Dr. Billy Martin.  It was a great week, but I did not have the opportunity to update my blog at all last week.

I want to share something that has been heavy on my heart over the last several months.  I have observed that our churches seem to be severely lacking when it comes to God's Word.  The statistics are very disturbing to say the least.

• Only 16% of churchgoers read the Bible everyday.

• Only 32% read the Bible at least once a week.

• Only 37% say that reading and studying the Bible has made a significant difference in the way they live their lives.

We must do something about this!  As I said, the statistics are very disturbing to say the least.  Just a little over 1/4 of our congregations are reading their Bibles only one time each week.  It is no wonder that our churches are in the shape that they are in!  Could you imagine only eating physically one time a week?  Most of us couldn't even imagine eating only one time a day.  We all know that if we skip eating that we are not going to grow physically; in fact, we are going to get weaker.  Why is that we do not apply the same standard to our spiritual lives?  How can we expect to grow spiritually if we are never in God's Word, or if we just read it once a week?  We are spiritually starving ourselves to death!

The most disturbing of these statistics to me is that only 37% say that reading and studying the Bible has made a significant difference in the way they live their lives.  This should not be!  If you are truly a child of God, every time that you read God's Word, it should radically change you!  I truly believe that what we have in many of our churches is a bunch of lost people trying to read the Bible and understand it, which is the problem.  I hear so much about how people say that they cannot understand the Bible.  Now let me be very clear, even as a Christian, you are not going to understand everything you read in the Bible, but you should have a general understanding.  As a child of God, when you read His Word it should convict you and stir your heart, it will change you!

I believe one of the biggest contributing factors to this epidemic is that many pastors and churches push reading your Bible through every year.  I have heard countless preachers talk about how many times they have read their Bible through during their lives.  I have even heard them make condescending remarks about those who have never read their Bibles through during the year.  It is not important whether or not a person reads their Bible through each year, but rather it is more important that they read their Bibles everyday.  We must encourage our people to get in God's Word everyday, even if they only read a few verses each day.

I will be the first to admit that I don't spend time in God's Word like I should, and if you are honest you would have to admit the same.  Purpose in your heart, that moving forward you are going to spend time in God's Word each day, but more importantly, that you are going to allow His Word to radically change how you live.  Get in the Word!!!

"The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver." - Psalm 119:72


"Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction." - Psalm 119:92


"O how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day." - Psalm 119:97


"How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" - Psalm 119:103


"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." - Psalm 119:105


"The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple." - Psalm 119:130


Prayer For Today:

Heavenly Father, help me to spend time in Your Word each day!  Father, I pray that as I read and study Your Word each day that You would radically change my heart and my life to look more like Christ.  Father, give me a burning desire for Your Word!  In Jesus name, Amen!

The Source Of Our Problems

"Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom." - Proverbs 13:10



A preacher friend of mine quoted this Bible verse in one of his posts this morning on Facebook and I decided to go read it and meditate on it for a little while.  As I thought on this verse, the Lord began to speak to my heart about writing something on it today.

It is so sad to see that there is much contention in many churches today and in the lives of many Christians today as well.  Why is that?  What is the reason for it?  The answer is pride, it is the root of all contention.  Pride is at the root of the problems and contentions that we have with others, whether it be in the church or outside the church.  Pride comes natural to us because of our flesh and our lusts.  We don't want to be wronged, we don't want to be corrected, we must have things our way, we are going to give someone a piece of our mind.  We manifest all of these attitudes because of pride.

The Bible tells us that God resists the proud.  In Proverbs chapter 6, we find that a proud look is something that God says He hates.    In contrast, the Bible tells us that God gives grace to the humble.  It also says that God is near to those of broken heart and a contrite spirit.  In light of this, there are several questions that come to mind.  Where is our humility?  Where is our brokenness?  Where is our spirit of contrition?

The solution to this problem is simple; if we want to get rid of contention in our churches, our homes, and our individual lives, we must get rid of our pride.  If we are dying daily to ourselves, our flesh, and our lusts, then there is no reason for us to have pride in our hearts.  However, in "American Christianity" the problem is that we do not die daily to all of these things.  Is it any wonder that we lack the power of God in our churches, pulpits, and our individual lives?

If you look to the middle of the word "Pride" you will find "I" and that says it all!

Prayer For Today:

Heavenly Father, help me today to die to my flesh, my desires, and my lusts.  Help me to deny myself and to surrender all to Christ.  Forgive me for my sin of pride in my heart and cleanse me from it.  Give me a spirit of humility, brokenness, and a contrite heart.  Lord, help me to remember, it isn't about me but rather it is ALL about Christ!  In Jesus name, Amen!

Have Pity

"Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me." - Job 19:21


 

It has been said that no one in all of Scripture, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, suffered like Job did.  It has also been said about Job's friends, that with friends like that, you don't need enemies.  What we read in Job 19:21 is one of the saddest statements made in Scripture.  Job is desperate as he cries out for his friends to have pity on him.  What stands out to me about this verse is the total lack of compassion and mercy shown by Job's supposed friends.

What about us today?  There are people in our churches today who are suffering.  Are we willing to show them mercy and compassion and really be there for our brothers and sisters in Christ when they need us?  There are also multitudes that are lost without Christ in our culture today.  Are we willing to speak the truth in love to them?  Are we also willing to show them mercy and compassion by showing them the love of Christ that they desperately need?  I'm so afraid that those in the church, as well as in the world, think that we see them only as a number.  "We have led this many to Christ this month.  We have given this much to missions this past year or we support this many missionaries."  You and I must be willing to invest ourselves into the lives of those who are in need, whether those needs be spiritual, physical, or emotional.  We must be willing to cry with others, to share their hurts, and cry out to the Lord on their behalf.

It seems to me today that way too many Christians are in the category of Job's supposed friends.  They are merciless, they are without compassion on those who are hurting and in need.  Too many times we spend so much time condemning others that we fail to show them Christ's love, mercy, or compassion.  Now I am not saying that we accept their sin and overlook it, I am saying that these people who are hurting need someone to just love them and show them Christ.

Will you show mercy, compassion, and the love of Christ to those that are hurting?  May God break our hearts especially for those that are lost in the world and desperately need Christ to save them before it is eternally too late!

Prayer For Today:

Heavenly Father. break my heart for those around me that are hurting and desperately need Your love!  Please forgive me for my failure to show Christ's love to these people.  Help me to show mercy and compassion to those in need, whether they be in the church or in the world.  May I make a difference in the life of someone else for Your honor and glory!  In Jesus name, Amen!

A New Opportunity

"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 the newness of life." - Romans 6:4



How did you do in your walk with Christ yesterday, the day before, or even last week?  Were you faithful and obedient to Him or did you fail big time?  If we are honest, we have to admit that there are days when we fail Christ so miserably.  However, we must not let our past failures keep us from being faithful and obedient to Christ today!

Today offers you a fresh opportunity to serve Christ.  It also offers you a fresh opportunity to allow Christ to have the rule and reign of your heart.  Each day you and I must surrender our hearts afresh and anew to Christ as we crucify our flesh.  We must daily take up our cross and follow Him in obedience.

Will you allow Jesus Christ to rule and reign in your heart today?  Will you crucify your flesh and surrender in obedience to Him today?  Will you take up your cross and follow Christ today?

Maybe you have failed Christ miserably yesterday or even today; don't dwell on it, don't fret about it.  Look at today or even tomorrow as a fresh and new opportunity to surrender to Christ and to let Him rule and reign in your heart!

Prayer For Today:

Heavenly Father, help me not to dwell on past failures in my walk with You. Help me to focus on today, that I might surrender to You in obedience afresh and anew.  Help me to this day to take up my cross and to follow You.  Thank You for new opportunities.  In Jesus name, Amen!

Dwelling Together In Unity

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity!" - Psalm 133:1


"The devils are united as one man in their infamous rebellion, while we believers in Jesus are divided in our service of God, and scarcely ever work with unanimity." - Charles Spurgeon

The Bible says that it is good and that it is pleasant for the brethren to dwell together in unity.  The Bible goes on to say in Psalm 133:2 that it is like a precious ointment upon the head.  With that being said, why is that we cannot seem to dwell together in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Please don't misunderstand me, I am not talking about yoking up with those that promote and teach false doctrine; neither am I talking about yoking up with those who are not saved.  I am talking about Christians who agree on the fundamentals of the faith.  In the New Testament, Jude exhorted his readers to "earnestly contend for the faith."  He did not say contend for the issues, he said contend for the faith!

Is it any wonder that we do not see people coming to Christ when the Body is divided?  Is it any wonder that people want nothing to do with the Bride of Christ?  Our enemy, Satan, and all of his cronies are most definitely united in their cause to destroy the name of Jesus Christ.  Why is it that we feel that we must attack others in the Body who don't cross their t's and dot their i's the way we do?  Again, I am not talking about those who are in doctrinal error.  This was the problem at Corinth, they were divided with one saying they were of Paul and another saying they were of Apollos.  Unfortunately, not much has changed since then.  Today in the Body of Christ we have all sorts of cliques and camps proudly touting who they are of: I am Sword of the Lord, I am Hyles-Anderson, I am in the camp meeting crowd, or I am BBF.  Please don't misunderstand me, I am not trying to pick on these specific groups, but rather I am just using them for examples.  Sadly, the reality is that if someone doesn't do what we think they should be doing or do it the way we think they should, we want to separate from them and ostracize them even when there is no Biblical reason or mandate for doing so.

Does it bother you that people are dying lost and spending an eternity in Hell because the Body is too busy fighting among themselves?  May God convict our hearts of this terrible wickedness and sin!  We have the truth that this lost world needs, but they are not hearing it because we are too busy fighting with each other.  I know that I am running the risk of being labeled a compromiser by my IFB brethren, but that is okay because I quit worrying what "the brethren" thought a long time ago.  I am ONLY concerned with pleasing Jesus Christ and being obedient to Him.

There is absolutely something wrong when you see the level of vitriol that is present among the Body today, especially coming from "men of God."  This attacking one another has got to stop!  How can we say the love of Christ dwells in us and then turn around and go after another brother in Christ just because it doesn't agree with our opinions or personal preferences?  All of this is done under the pretense of taking a stand.  My question is: taking a stand for what?  Where is the humility?  Where is the meekness?  Where is the brokenness?

I can't help but think about what a hot time it is going to be at the Judgment Seat of Christ as we have to give account to Christ for the discord that we have sown in the Body.  How many people have died lost and are now burning in Hell because of the lack of unity in the Body?  Do we even care or does it even bother us that our lack of unity and our discord is hindering us from sharing the Gospel with those that are in desperate need of salvation?

May the Lord forgive us for our lack of unity and may He forgive us for the way treat other members of His Body!  I pray that we would ask the Lord for meekness, humility, and that our hearts would be broken!

It's Time To Move On

"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." - Ephesians 4:31-32


Have you ever heard someone say, "I can't forgive them, you don't know what they have done to me" or "I'll forgive them, but I won't forget."  Maybe you have even said those very words yourself due to someone doing you wrong.  However, the world has no rewards for those who remain bitter and angrily focused on the past, and neither does God.

Are you still holding a grudge or bitter about something that happened in the past?  If so, most importantly, you are disobeying God's Word, but you are also just wasting your time.  Hatred, bitterness, and remaining angry over the past are not part of God's plan for our lives.

Since we all have that old sin nature, we are quick to anger and quick to blame someone else, but then we are slow to forgive and even slower to forget.  However, as Christians we are commanded by Jesus Christ Himself  in Matthew 5:43-48 to forgive those that wrong us, to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them that despitefully use and persecute us.  I remember a while back preaching on that very passage and I had a woman come up to me after the service to let me know what she thought about what I preached.  She told me that I couldn't say that until I had been in the person's shoes who had been wronged or hurt by someone else.  The only problem with her statement is that I was not the one telling her that she had to forgive this person who had done something terrible to a member of her family.  I was merely reading the words that Christ had spoken.  Jesus Christ is the one who says that we must forgive, no matter what.

Right about now you might be saying, "You don't know what they did, you don't know how terrible and heinous the thing was they did."  While that may be true, I don't fully understand the impact of what someone else has had to go through, it still doesn't change the words of our Lord.  Think about what Jesus Christ went through when He was crucified.  He was completely innocent of the crime He was accused of.  He was mocked, beaten so bad you could not recognize He was a man, He endured the agony of the cross, yet He said "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."  Jesus Christ was taking our place and the punishment that we deserved because of our sin and yet He asked the Father to forgive us for what we did to Him  WOW!!!

If Christ could forgive someone like me for putting Him on that cross because of my sin, then surely I can forgive someone when they wrong me, no matter what.  Now please don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that it is going to be easy to do this and to live this.  It is going to be the hardest thing that you will ever do.  This is one of those things that is so easy to preach and say, but it is so hard to do because of our sin nature.

Is there someone that you need to forgive?  Is there something you need to let go?  If so, forgive them, let it go, and then ask God to forgive you for your sin of holding on to that bitterness and hatred.  Life is short and eternity is fast approaching.  It's time to move on and show the love and forgiveness of Christ to others as He has shown it to us.

Prayer For Today:

Heavenly Father, forgive me for any hatred or bitterness that might be in my heart.  Forgive me for my disobedience to Your Word.  Thank you Lord for forgiving me even though I do not deserve it.  Help me to show the love and forgiveness of Christ to those around me.  In Jesus name, Amen!