Month: March 2024

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He Will Lead You

“This is love for God: to keep his commands.” —1 John 5:3 NIV

A few years ago, a pastor friend said of a particular kind of sin, “I’m not so sure that’s a sin any more under the new covenant in Christ.” Aye yai yai! I was stunned. His was but one voice articulating what I perceive to be a troubling trend among believers today: the notion that Jesus’ love tolerates sin (it doesn’t) as if to make it OK (it isn’t). God’s liberating love and grace are far greater—far more empowering and transformational than this. Let’s look.

Our sin is onerous before God; it has been so since our Edenic fall. Indeed, it was our sin that put Jesus, our unblemished sacrifice, on the cross. “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities.”1 He did not come to make us comfortable with sin, but as Him who “takes away the sin of the world!”2 Then, if we have been rescued from the penalty of our sins, are they now OK? “By no means!” exclaimed Paul, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”3 Sin still exists, and God’s disposition toward it has not changed.

In fact, it is in the context of grace that Jesus tells us to obey God’s commands, and it is only in the power of grace that we can. Jesus taught His disciples, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”4 And Peter exhorts us to appropriate the grace we have received: “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”5 Peter again, “[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.”6

Then does Scripture put us back under the Law, so as to earn God’s favor through our own power and grit? No, we have neither the natural strength or inclination to do so. Rather just as by grace God’s Son suffered our death, so also by grace His Spirit guides our life. For what God foretold has proved true: “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”7 God’s Spirit, alive in us through faith in Christ, leads us away from sin and onto God’s ways of good and right. Jesus’ love does not tolerate sin; it overcomes its power, both in death and in life. Trust Him, and obey. He will lead you.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.—
1 John 2:1 NIV

Father, thank You for Your unconquerable love and grace. Open my heart to know Your presence and to follow Your lead. Just for today, I lay aside my will for Yours. And tomorrow, may I do so again. In Christ I pray. Amen.

1 Isaiah 53:5 ESV
2 John 1:29 ESV
3 Romans 6:1-2 ESV
4 John 14:23 NIV
5 1 Peter 2:16 ESV
6 1 Peter 2:24 ESV
7 Ezekiel 36:26-27 NIV

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What Nature Speaks of God

Visiting Colonia, Uruguay, Peggy and I were intrigued by its history, particularly as silently spoken through its architecture. Founded in 1680 by Portuguese soldiers, the settlement soon fell to Spanish forces, only to change hands between the two sides at least seven times over the next 130 years. Today, the historic sector of Colonia remains a fusion of both traditions—the ornate, pastel painted, stucco facades of Spanish influence interspersed among the rougher stone and wood exteriors of more subdued earth tones, the legacy of the Portuguese. Who they were mainfested through their respective creations.

Paul claims the same about God: “What can be known about God is plain to [people], because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”1 So let’s pause and listen to what creation proclaims of its Maker.

God’s irrefutable authority. “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”2

God’s sovereign power. “Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash? Do you know how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who has perfect knowledge?”3

God’s ubiquitous magnificence. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. . . When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”4

God’s transcendent glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”5

God’s artistic brilliance. “O Lord, what a variety of things you have made! In wisdom you have made them all.”6

In Hebrews we read, “By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.”7 In turn, what we see speaks volumes about its unseen Maker. He is great. He is sovereign. He loves us. We can trust Him.

Father, grace me to quiet my soul before You, that I might marvel in what You have made and know You better as its Maker. In Christ I pray. Amen.

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When Smart Isn’t Smart

My friend drives a Smart car—you know, the little ones that look like a bobblehead football helmet on four wheels, and not much bigger. Curious as to its crashworthiness and occupant safety, I took the indirect approach to inquiry: “How does your Smart car do in snow?” I asked him. “Terrible,” he replied, “I only drive it in good weather.” He went on: “I once hit a racoon with this car. It cost me $300 in damage, and the racoon ran off!”

(Uh-huh. Just as I thought.)

Sometimes “smart” is, well, just not smart. Sometimes “thrifty” is costly. Sometimes “safety” is still perilous. This is true of our physical health, and even more so of our spiritual wellbeing. Yet when it comes to the latter, it is all too easy to be duped into death-trap theology, such as, “There are many paths that lead to God.” Such feel good assertions are “unsafe at any speed,” for Jesus himself taught us the exact opposite. “Enter by the narrow gate,” He urged His hearers, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”1 Likewise, Peter, having sat under Jesus’ tutelage before witnessing the risen and ascended Christ, boldly proclaimed to the gathered crowd, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”2 By what authority can we possibly assert anything else? And why would we thus imperil others?

Lest there be any doubt, Jesus proclaimed as clearly as can be, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”3 Place your entire trust in Him and in Him alone. Anything else is less, and anything less is just not smart.

“Lord [Jesus], to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”4 Father, “sanctify [us] in the truth; your word is truth.”5 Holy Spirit, “guide [us] into all the truth.”6 In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Matthew 7:13-14 ESV
2 Acts 4:12 NIV
3 John 14:6 ESV
4 John 6:68-69 ESV
5 John 1:7 ESV
6 John 16:13 ESV