Open the Bible UK Daily

Let a person examine himself.1 Corinthians 11:28Make it your regular practice to give your soul a thorough examination to see if there is anything displeasing to God hidden inside you. There are several ways of doing this. As you read the Bible, note anything that displeases God and ask yourself, “Do I see any evidence of this in me?” Don’t ask vague questions like “Are there any sins in my soul?" Go hunting for specifics. Here is a checklist of some sins that could easily infect you: taking God’s name in vain, crude or vulgar conversation, enjoying unclean jokes, cruelty toward others, especially those who are weak, cynicism, greed, and bitterness. These are as deadly to your soul as cancer is to your body. Let’s consider pride for a moment. Peter said, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). It doesn’t say that God “ignores” the proud. It says that He “opposes” them. He puts up His hand, and He says, “You aren’t going anywhere.” The proud person thinks he is achieving all kinds of marvellous things. But, actually, he never makes any progress. On the last day there will be little of lasting value to show for his work. The humble receive grace from God. So, there are going to be some surprises in heaven. Jesus said, “The last will be first. and the first last" (Mat. 20:16). We may well find ourselves wondering why so many people we have never heard of are receiving such rich rewards while others who we thought were front-runners in the kingdom seem to be empty-handed. If pride or greed or lust or self-pity or bitterness or cynicism are anywhere in us, then they must be identified, confessed, and destroyed. That’s the language of the New Testament: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (Col. 3:5).Will you take a few moments now to examine your soul using a passage from the Bible like the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20)?

To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.Jude 23When you reach out to others in ministry, you need to be very careful that you do not end up falling into sin yourself. Jude uses the word “fear.” You need to have a healthy fear lest you fall into the same sins as somebody else you are reaching out to. The Bible speaks of two kinds of fear. There is an unhealthy kind of fear. You should not be afraid of your enemies or of danger or of those who kill the body, but there is also a healthy kind of fear. You should fear God and you should fear being stained by the corruption of this world. This fear of falling into sin arises from a healthy scepticism about yourself. If you have understood the Bible rightly, you will be fully confident in Jesus Christ and deeply sceptical about yourself. Our culture gets this backwards. We are confident in ourselves and doubtful about Christ. That is why we don’t have the fear of falling into sin. Notice the beautiful balance of Scripture here. In verse 24, Jude says that Jesus “is able to keep you from stumbling.” We have a Saviour who is able to protect us from the devil and to keep us from falling into his snares. But, at the same time, Jude says that we must watch ourselves. We need to be on our guard so that as we live in this world, we do not become conformed to it. If you don’t watch yourself, don’t expect Jesus to keep you from falling. This truth is like a bicycle with two wheels. You need both, and if you lose either one, you won’t make much progress.In your daily life are you more conscious of your need to watch yourself or of Jesus’ ability to keep you from falling?

Save others by snatching them out of the fire.Jude 23Those who can see that they’ve been burned know what the fire can do, and they reach out to others in the flames. That takes courage. You can’t do ministry without being burned. There is no pain-free ministry. There is an old story about an African village. One night there was a fire in a wooden building, and the whole family who was sleeping there died, except for a tiny baby boy. As the fire flared up, a stranger rushed in and carried the child to safety, and then vanished into the night. In the morning, the village elders had to decide what should be done with him. No one knew how the child had escaped, but all felt it would be a privilege to adopt this child whom the gods had smiled on. So, the elders argued with one another about who should adopt the child until a young man stepped forward and insisted that it should be him. When they demanded to know why, he showed them his hands—they were burned. After Jesus died and rose from the dead, He came to some discouraged believers and showed them His hands and His side. Jesus went into the fire for you. He endured the pains of hell for you. All so that you could be snatched like a burning stick from the fire! This Jesus, with scars in His hands, comes to those He has rescued and says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Take up your share of the pain and cost of ministry in this fallen world.Are you trying to do ministry without being burned? What is keeping you from taking up your cross and following the One who went to the cross and laid down His life for you?

Save others by snatching them out of the fire.Jude 23If you’re going to be useful in ministry, you need to have a proper understanding of yourself and what God has done for you. Sin has damaged us all, but the Bible makes it clear that sin has done deeper damage to you and to me than staining our lives. It’s changed our nature. Like wood that's been in a fire, sin burns. It consumes. The Bible makes it clear that we’re sinners because we sin. It also teaches that we sin because we’re sinners. Behind our wrong actions, there is a damaged nature. Your greatest problem is not your behaviour. It is your nature that gives rise to your behaviour. Sin goes deeper than clothing stains or graffiti: it's like wood burning. Here is an appropriate way to describe a born-again, spirit-filled, I-read-my-Bible-every-day kind of Christian: “I am a burned stick” (see Zech. 3:2). That’s not the only thing the Bible says about you, and it certainly is not the most flattering thing, but the Bible makes it clear that you’re a burned stick. You’re a charred piece of wood, and you've been snatched from the fire. One day you will be completely free from all the effects of sin in your life, but that will only happen when Christ comes again. Until then there will always be a charred side to you. When you understand that, it will help you to grow in humility, and it will also help you to grow in compassion and patience with others.Can you see how you have been charred by your own sin? Thank God for snatching you (or ask Him to snatch you) from the fire. Can you name one person in your life who is being burned by his or her own sin? Bring this person before God right now.

Have mercy on those who doubt.Jude 22Those who doubt would include those whose faith has been undermined and those whose faith has not yet been fully formed. There are many people like this today. How are we to minister to folks who are confused about their faith? Jude says, “Do this with great compassion.” There’s a big difference between the child who struggles to do what’s right and the child who refuses to do what’s right. And there’s a big difference between the person who struggles to believe and the person who refuses to believe. Wonderfully, God can tell the difference. Your ministry will be more effective if you can learn to be merciful to those who doubt. Imagine a lady who is widowed and six months later she is still struggling with questions. Her friend is losing patience with her, and so she says, “You should be over this by now. Are you going to trust God or not?” Now imagine a middle-aged person who knows very little of the Bible but feels that he believes and that he wants to grow. So, he finds his way into a Bible study group and someone in the group says about his church background, “Oh, dear! You wouldn’t learn very much there.” Don’t forget—God has placed many people around you—some whose faith may be unformed, and some whose faith may have been undermined. Be compassionate toward those who don’t have the insight that you have. Remember, another person may struggle with a particular frailty that you know nothing about. Don’t expect other people to grasp in a week what you took twenty years to learn!What “doubting” person is in your life right now? How can you show them mercy?

Have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire.Jude 22-23If you want to live a healthy Christian life, you need to learn to wait. The obvious question is, What does God want us to do while we are waiting? The answer is that we are to give ourselves to ministry. God calls us to ministry. There are people in need all around us. So, from now until the day when Jesus comes or calls for us, we are to give ourselves to the work of ministry. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34). You will find that God sustains you in your walk with Him as you give yourself to serving others. Maybe you are already doing this. Serving is part of who you are. If not, the best form of spiritual exercise for you would be to get out and do something that ministers to somebody else. If your spiritual life is to be healthy, you need to build up your faith, you need to pray, and you need to keep yourself in God’s love. These are the private spiritual disciplines. But a healthy Christian life is more than just Jesus and me. If all you have is a relationship with Jesus in which you know sweet times of prayer and study, then your Christian life is out of balance. It is not healthy. Spiritual health involves this dimension of ministry in which your life touches the lives of others. A wise pastor once talked about “irrigating your soul in the joys and sorrows of your people.” Your own soul will be watered as you enter into the joys and sorrows of another person. Be intentional about building this into your life. Look for ways to bring the blessing of God to others, to lighten somebody else’s load. Let there be someone who, at the end of today, has reason to thank God for you.How could you be more intentional about ministry to others?

Wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ...Jude 21The people who bring menus to your table at a restaurant are called waiters or waitresses. They have no other agenda but to wait on you. They take your order, bring your food, and then make sure everything is okay. Some people think God exists to wait on us, but the Bible tells us that our calling is to wait on Him. The purpose of our lives is to make ourselves wholly available to Jesus Christ, the guest of honour, who has come into this world. Maybe you’ve had this experience. You go to a restaurant, and every time the waitress comes to your table, she wants to tell you another episode from her life. That’s inappropriate. The waitress is there to serve the guests. No one would be surprised if her manager soon let her go. Jesus is the perfect model of waiting on God: He delights in the will of the Father, and He’s ready to do it even when it involves a cross. He says, “Don’t expect a trouble-free life. Expect joy and disappointment, pleasure and pain, unfathomable mysteries, unanswered questions, unresolved problems and unfinished business. Will you take up your cross in all that and follow me?” Think of the great disappointments of your life—the heartfelt prayers not yet answered, the great longings of your soul not yet satisfied. You can think of every one of these as invitations to come into God’s gym. He is saying to you, “You want this to be over. I want to make this useful.”Evaluate your love for God. Are you moving toward or away from Jesus’ perfect model of waiting on God?

[Wait] for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.Jude 21When Jude talks about waiting, the obvious question is, Don’t we already have God’s mercy? Yes. Don’t we already have Jesus Christ? Yes. Don’t we already have eternal life? Yes! If we’ve already received these things, why does Jude tell us to wait? This is teaching us something important: All that you can experience in the Christian life is only a taste of what Christ has in store for you. The Holy Spirit is a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come (2 Cor. 1:22). If you buy a home, the down payment is only a tiny fraction of your mortgage. Everything you experience of God in this life, every good gift from His hand, every blessing, and every pleasure is only a tiny advance on what God has in store for you. Use the disappointments of life (the waiting) not only to detach yourself from the pursuit of paradise in this world, but to cultivate a healthy anticipation of what God has promised: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). What will life be like when the mercy of Christ brings you to everlasting life? Your body will be redeemed from the curse. Your relationships will be redeemed from the taint of sin. Your soul will be free to serve God as you always wished you could. All creation will be redeemed from the curse. You will be completely at home in the presence of God.What is one disappointment that has you waiting right now? Pray about how it could help you detach yourself from the pursuit of paradise in this world.

[Wait] for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.Jude 21Patience is what you need when things have not worked out as you hoped. Somewhere deep within every heart there is a dream of life as we want it to be. That dream is placed in your heart by God. The word “wait” reminds us that the dream will never be fulfilled in this life. Our first parents were driven out of the garden of Eden. Paradise was lost and the dream can no longer be fulfilled here because this world is under a curse. This is very hard for many of us to grasp in the Western world. We easily become confused into thinking that we’re in paradise now. Imagine buying a sign that says: “This is not paradise.” You might hang it over your front door. It would remind you that you’ll never have “the perfect family.” That would take a lot of pressure off everyone. Some couples ought to put that over the door to their bedroom. Perhaps you need to put it in your car. It would be a great sign to place over the entrance to your church. The problem for many of us is that we expect more than God has ever promised in this life, and we’re constantly disappointed and frustrated. So, we run up massive debts, only to find out that paradise is beyond our grasp. You cannot create paradise in this world. The sooner you discover this, the sooner you will be able to break free from the pursuit of the advertiser’s dream. When God calls you to wait, it is a wake-up call to reality. There are discoveries of God’s grace that you can make while you are waiting that you could never make if the longing of your heart was fulfilled. You cannot grow in patience when what you long for is given. The moment it becomes yours, the opportunity to grow has been lost.Where could the reminder “This is not paradise” most help you right now?

Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.Jude 21Once you see how important the theme of waiting is in the Bible, you’ll have new motivation to exercise this neglected area of the Christian life. Here are five passages on waiting: Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him. (Ps. 37:7) I wait or the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. (Ps. 130:5-6) They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength. (Is. 40:31) You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven. (1 Thes. 1:9-10) Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Heb. 9:28) Waiting seems to be a complete waste of time, so we often look for something to do while we’re waiting. That’s why there are magazines in the doctor’s waiting room. We try to fill up the time with something useful. We think of waiting as something to endure in order to get what we want. But God speaks about waiting as the way we grow when we don’t have what we want. Waiting is not wasted time. Waiting can be the greatest growth opportunity of your life.What are you waiting for right now? Do you see this waiting as the greatest growth opportunity of your life, a waste of time, or something else?

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.Romans 5:5In one of Garrison Keillor’s books about Lake Wobegon he describes a rather awkward teenager growing up in a small town. The lad gives a speech at his high school graduation, and afterwards somebody comes up to him and says, “Nice speech!” But he can’t receive a compliment. “Oh no,” he says, “I was just rambling. I didn’t know what I was talking about. I was just glad when it was all over.” He couldn’t receive a compliment because inside he was a monster starving for a compliment. He didn’t want somebody to say, “Nice speech.” What he really wanted was for someone to fall at his feet in worship. That’s the problem with some of us. We are so consumed— either with our own pain or with our own perfectionism— that we’re unable to hear the Word of God. So, when God tells us that He loves us, we just brush it off. When the apostle Paul prays for young believers, do you know what he asks God for? He asks that God would give them the power to grasp the “breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of Christ (Eph. 3:18). That is a great way to pray. Ask God to give you the capacity to contain a greater sense of His love for you.“We are so consumed—either with our own pain or with our own perfectionism—that we’re unable to hear the Word of God.” To what degree is this true of you?

The Son of God… loved me and gave himself for me.Galatians 2:20Some time ago, a minister from England went to India to deliver a series of evangelistic messages. When he arrived, there were posters hanging all over town advertising the evening meetings at which he would be speaking. The posters were supposed to read: “The visiting minister from England will bring the evening messages.” But instead, there was a typo, and the posters actually said: “The visiting minister from England will bring the evening massages.” The work of the preacher is to massage the Word of God into the soul until it changes what you think and feel. But some of us who have experienced very little love earlier on in life, or who are perfectionists by nature, tend to have great difficulty in feeling that we are truly loved by God. If this is true of you, then you need this workout: Start to memorise and personalise Bible passages that speak directly of the love of God. Massage them into your mind until they begin to loosen up your heart: “God shows his love for me in that while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me” (Rom. 5:8, author’s paraphrase). Allow God to tell you that He loves you. This is the Word of God. This is what God is saying to you. Learn to listen to what He says.Identify a Bible passage or two about God’s love that you’d like to personalise and memorise.

This is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.1 John 4:10One way to work God’s love into your mind is through the Lord’s Supper. At the very centre of Christian worship, God has given us this exercise to keep us in spiritual shape. We come to a table where we receive bread and wine. They direct our attention to the cross, where Christ’s body was broken, and His blood was shed for you. God uses the supper to tell us that He loves us. Here is an old hymn that used to be sung at the Lord’s Table: Give me a sight, O Saviour, of your wondrous love to me. The love that brought you down to earth to die at Calvary. O make me understand it, help me to take it in. What it meant to you, the Holy One, to bear away my sin. Come to the table with open eyes, open ears, and a believing heart. The body of Jesus was broken for you. The blood of Jesus was shed for you. Christ invites all His people to take the bread and eat it, to take the cup and drink it. This love that was poured out touches you. You may go through days when you find it difficult to feel the love of God. Go back to the cross, and say with Paul, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).How might you approach the Lord’s Supper differently in the future?

Keep yourselves in the love of God...Jude 21The Bible talks about the love of God in a number of ways: Providential love is God’s kindness to His enemies as well as His friends. God’s enemies will come under His judgement, but right now they receive good gifts from His hand. Why do good things happen to bad people? Answer: God’s providential love. Saving love is God reaching out to us: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Whoever believes is no longer God’s enemy, but His friend. That’s God’s saving love. Covenant love is God’s unshakable commitment to His own people. God bound Himself to Israel: “I will be your God, and you shall be my people” (Jer. 7:23). Then His people broke that covenant. But God will never let go of His own people. That’s God’s covenant love. Disciplining love is how God forms the likeness of Christ in His children: “The Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Heb. 12:6). The wicked do not experience this love. God allows them to go their own way, but He intervenes with loving discipline when His children go astray. Affirming love is the joyful affirmation the children of God experience when they’re walking with Him. There was no discipline in the garden, Adam and Eve simply enjoyed life under the smile of God. But when they sinned, they found themselves outside of God's affirming love. The love of God is free, unchangeable, unconditional, unmerited, and unearned. At the same time, Christ calls us to remain in His love, and we do that as we walk in obedience to Him.What do you know about the love of God?

[Pray] in the Holy Spirit…Jude 20Another way to pray in the Spirit is by using the Lord’s Prayer (Mat. 6:9-13). Martin Luther structured his entire prayer life around the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. (6:9) Luther prayed that God would be honoured in his own life, and in the church, and in the nation where he lived. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (6:10) He prayed for the advancement of God’s kingdom, and he prayed for what is true, just, and right. Give us this day our daily bread. (6.11) He prayed about his own daily needs, and for the needs of others that he was aware of—money, energy, peace, direction, patience, and guidance. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive those who sin against us. (6:12) He prayed about his own sins, and he asked for God’s help in forgiving the wounds that were inflicted on him by others. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (6:13) He asked God to help him identify the activity of Satan, and then he called on God against all of it that he was able to see. That covers the whole of life. You could pray these five headings every day for the next year, and you would always find something fresh, and you would be praying in the Spirit because you’re praying in line with Jesus Christ.Take a few moments and try praying through the Lord’s Prayer yourself. Compare and contrast this with your normal routine for prayer.

[Pray] in the Holy Spirit…Jude 20The Bible contains some marvellous prayers that were breathed out by the Spirit of God. You will find many of them in the book of Psalms. The whole Bible was written as men were carried along by the Holy Spirit and as you fill your mind with God's Word, you will begin to think God’s thoughts after Him. If you learn to form your prayers from the Bible, you will be praying in a way that reflects the heart and mind of God. You might like to begin with the Psalms: Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked… Help me to recognise advice that is dishonouring to You today and not to follow it. …nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. (Ps. 1:1) Lord, keep me from cynicism today. Keep me from looking at any wrong path. His delight is in the law of the Lord. (Ps. 1:2) Lord, help me to love You and to love your law. Help me to see the blessing of walking in your way, and to have new joy in doing that. Turning the Scriptures into prayers will help you keep your prayers fresh. Every day you will see something new. More than that, your mind will be guided into the thoughts of God. This is the difference between eastern mysticism and Christian prayer. Mysticism says, “Empty your mind so you can pray.” God says, “Fill your mind so you can pray.” Let an open Bible guide your praying and you'll find that you begin to think God’s thoughts after Him as you pray in the Spirit.Does your prayer life tend more toward eastern mysticism or Christian prayer?

We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.Romans 8:26Imagine a teenage computer geek writing software in his basement: “How can I get this in the hands of the people at Microsoft?” He doesn’t know anyone there, and he has no idea how to introduce his ideas to them. Who knows how many requests they receive in a day. One day there’s a knock at the door, and a short middle-aged guy with reddish hair and glasses is standing there. “Hi, I’m Bill Gates…” The next thing this teenager knows, he’s sitting at his laptop with Bill Gates at his elbow. “Let me tell you,” says Bill, “where Microsoft is headed. Move your work in that direction, and maybe we can be partners.” When this young man eventually sends his proposal to Microsoft, he sends it with great confidence, because he knows that what Bill Gates has prompted, Bill Gates will receive. God comes to every believer and teaches us what to pray. When that happens, we can pray with confidence, because what the Spirit has prompted, the Father will receive: This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. (1 John 5:14) Sometimes we’re like the geek working in the basement. But true prayer involves the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and you. There’s a profound sense in which you never pray alone.Think about the geek's confidence before and after he talked to Bill Gates. Does your confidence in prayer typically look more like one or the other?

[Pray] in the Holy Spirit…Jude 20Once you’ve grasped that there’s one God, and that He’s not whoever you want Him to be, the next question is “How do you come to Him?” That depends on what you want to receive. The Bible uses the picture of a throne to help us understand. There is one God, but more than one throne. That’s easy to understand for those of us in the United Kingdom. We have one King but he has several thrones, and each throne relates to a different function. Likewise, there is one God, but He has more than one throne. There’s a “great white throne” (Rev. 20:11) where God administers justice. And there’s “the throne of grace” (Heb. 4:16). You can come to the great white throne any way you want. But if you want to come to the throne of grace, you need to come through Jesus. The Bible tells us to hold firmly to the faith we profess (Heb. 4:14) and to approach the throne of grace with confidence so we may receive grace to help us in our time of need (4:16). Access to the throne of grace comes through our great high priest, Jesus the Son of God. So “in the name of Jesus Christ” isn’t a tagline at the end of our prayers. It’s foundational. We’re invited to come to the Father through the Son. So, if you’re looking for grace, there’s no other way to pray but in the name of Jesus, because God’s grace comes to us through Him.When you pray, are you coming to God any way you want? Or through Jesus? What difference does it make?

[Pray] in the Holy Spirit…Jude 20Imagine meeting with your minister at church. He places a number of envelopes in front of you and says, “We can talk about anything you want. But here are some envelopes with questions written on them. Go ahead and pick one.” The topics range from faith to spiritual growth to fellowship, but you choose the envelope on prayer. The question on the envelope reads: “How would you describe your prayer life?” and inside there are a number of cards with various words—some positive, some negative. You choose two cards to describe your prayer life: “Irregular” and “Aimless.” Many Christians today would agree, and say, “I’m doing okay in the Christian life, but I’d have to admit—I’m out of shape when it comes to prayer.” Sooner or later, you will come to a situation in which you will want to call on God to help you. The first question is “Which God?” If you say, “There is only one God,” who is He? And how can we know Him? Until you’ve settled this matter, your praying will not get very far off the ground. Here’s the reason: if God is whoever you imagine Him to be, then when you go to pray, you are just talking to yourself, or to a figment of your imagination, and that’s not much help. There is one God, and we can know Him and pray to Him, because He has made Himself known to us through Abraham, Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and supremely in Jesus Christ.How would you describe your prayer life? (Aimless? Vibrant? Irregular? Consistent? Shallow? Growing? Other?)

[Look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith...Hebrews 12:2Faith grows by looking at Jesus. Faith becomes strong as you fill your mind and soul with how trustworthy He is. Imagine yourself as a younger child, attending a professional sporting event with your family. Your parents get tickets about twenty-five rows from the game. The people are packed in like sardines, and they’re standing in front of you, so you find it very difficult to see. You eventually find a solution. Instead of sitting in your chair, you stand on it. It’s a bit shaky, but it’s the best way to get a glimpse of your favourite players in all their glory. That’s how you must read the Scriptures and come to worship if you want your faith to grow. You must come looking for a glimpse of Jesus and asking the Holy Spirit to open up the Word to give a fresh glimpse of Him to your soul. Some of us come to church, and to the Bible, like a little boy or girl standing behind a crowd of taller adults. We never see anything, and we no longer expect to see anything. Other people are catching a glimpse of Jesus, but you don’t see it. If you come to worship and to the Word with great expectation, you will move from reading about Jesus to knowing Him. You will find yourself feeding on Him, and your faith will grow.On a scale of 1 (very low) to 10 (very high), what is your expectation of “catching a glimpse of Jesus” in worship? How about in your Bible reading?

[Build] yourselves up in your most holy faith...Jude 20Faith is like a muscle. It grows strong when it is used. If you want to develop a particular muscle, you pull or push against a weight. Faith grows when it has to push against a great burden. That’s what happens when God allows trials in your life. You lose your job, a relationship ends, or the bottom line of your business is the wrong colour, and suddenly you’re in the gym. This is the moment. God is handing you the weights. When God allows you to face difficulties, He is calling you to exercise faith. This is how faith grows, by being exercised under pressure. When you find yourself saying, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this,” this is the moment to exercise your faith in God. This is the moment to walk by faith and not by sight. You will not grow in faith if every time God puts you in the gym, you just sit there until the session is over. If you don’t pray and you don’t exercise the muscle of faith, when you come out of the trial your faith won’t be any stronger than when you went in. You went through the trial, but you missed the opportunity for growth. When God puts you in the gym again, ask Him for eyes to see when it happens, and seize the moment. Come to God and say, “This time, I am going to trust you. Strengthen my faith and cause me to grow.”When was the last time God put you in the gym? Did you exercise the muscle of faith? If so, how? Or do you feel like you missed an opportunity for growth?

[Build] yourselves up in your most holy faith…Jude 20Jude is talking about the same faith here that he mentions in verse 3: “The faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” You can build up your faith by affirming what you believe. That’s why Christians throughout the centuries have recited creeds in their worship: “I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth…” C.H. Spurgeon preached to vast crowds in London over a hundred years ago. When the time came for him to enter the pulpit, he often felt completely overwhelmed. So, as he climbed the steps into his pulpit, he would say to himself, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” You might want to say that when you go into a job interview or another situation you find overwhelming. Maybe Satan keeps reminding you of some failure in your life. You have confessed it. You have repented. But the enemy keeps bringing it to your memory. Affirm your faith: “The blood of Jesus cleanses me from every sin. I believe in the blood of Jesus.” The Psalms are full of affirmations of faith in God. He has given us these affirmations to help us build ourselves up in the faith. The world, the flesh, and the devil are constantly assaulting our minds with lies, doubts, and questions. So feed your mind with affirmations of what you believe: “Oh give thanks to the LORD for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” (Ps. 107:1). Affirming your faith by confessing what God has revealed will cause your faith to grow. It is like fresh air to the soul.What are some Bible passages that you keep going back to? Which verses have helped you over the years to affirm your faith?

[Build] yourselves up in your most holy faith…Jude 20There will be times when you seem to be making little progress, and you wonder, “What’s wrong with me? Am I a Christian at all?” Jude says, “You need to build up your faith.” How do you do that? Satan loves to point out how puny, pathetic, and embarrassingly small your faith is. You should counter by recognising the faith you have—however small—is a miracle, a gift from God, and by giving thanks for it. When you begin to thank God for what he’s done and for what he's doing, you'll find that the cloud lifts and your faith begins to grow. If you cannot see anything God is doing—in your life or in other believers—the problem is not with God, the problem is with your eyesight: “My Father is always at his work” (John 5:17, NIV84). Faith is like a bulb that is planted in the ground and then gets a pile of dirt dumped on it. You’d think that would be the end of its life, but the miracle is that it survives and grows. Think of everything arrayed against your faith. How did your faith survive all the unanswered questions, all the bitter disappointments, and all the exhausting struggles of your life? The amazing thing about your faith is not that it is weak, but that it exists at all. There is only one explanation: The faith that you have, however weak, is the work of Almighty God. Thank God for that miracle. Recognise what God has done, and your faith will begin to grow.What is God doing in your life? If you can’t see anything right now, try to identify a few unanswered questions, disappointments, or struggles that your faith has survived.

I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith…Jude 3Evangelicals often emphasise spiritual life and the importance of the new birth. We rejoice when people give testimonies of how they came to faith in Christ. But spiritual life is no guarantee of spiritual health. You may be spiritually alive, but are you spiritually fit? We know what it’s like to be out of shape physically. What does it look like when we’re out of shape spiritually? Here are some symptoms: Loss of vigour and vision: Lethargy creeps in. Loss of enjoyment of God, the Word, and worship: Your experience of the nearness of God or of brokenness of soul is a memory, but it is no longer a living experience. Loss of gratitude: You worry about what God has not given you, rather than rejoicing in what He has given. Loss of spiritual hunger and thirst: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God" (Ps. 42:1). This is a soul that is in good shape. Loss of compassion: The needs of others are a burden to you; you become impatient with their faults, and you feel frustrated at their lack of progress. These are some of the symptoms of a soul that is out of shape. There is only one way to deal with the problem and that is to get into God’s exercise room.Rank these symptoms on a scale from 1 to 10: “1” means you see no signs, “5” means you see regular signs, “10” means you see signs of this symptom on a daily basis.

But you, beloved, [build] yourselves up in your most holy faith.Jude 20Jude’s message is very simple: Keep yourself in spiritual shape. It is also very practical, because Jude breaks this down into seven workouts for a healthy Christian life. You may be committed to some kind of fitness programme. You may work out with a personal trainer who gives you an exercise routine to help you get in shape. A good exercise routine will get you working on different muscle groups: “This one is for your abs. This one is for the quads,” etc. In any routine we’ll be drawn to some exercises, and we’ll be tempted to skip others that we don’t like doing. Remember, it’s usually the ones that you tend to skip that you most need to do. As with any good coach, Jude’s instructions are simple. Imagine yourself standing in the middle of a field with Jude as your coach. He’s been telling us what we’re up against. Then he says to the team, “But you…” Build yourself up in the faith. Pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourself in God’s love. Learn to wait. Reach out to others. Watch yourself. Rest in the triumph of God. These verses are a gold mine of how to live the Christian life in a world of doctrinal confusion and moral compromise. Let’s work with this trainer, Jude, to get ourselves into spiritual shape.Of the seven workouts Jude has for us, which one is your strongest area and which one is your weakest area?

God… pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant.Micah 7:18Micah preached this message to all the people of Israel. The sad fact is that to the vast majority of people, what Micah said didn't make the slightest difference. Life went on exactly the same as it had before. Another day, another pound (or shekel). The vast majority of people in Micah’s day were still caught up in their old sins, they had no defence against future temptations, and God’s anger remained on them. But there were a few who realised God was speaking to them, and they turned to Him in repentance. They asked for God’s pardon and prayed for His help to begin living different lives. These people were called the remnant— the group that remained. Micah says, “God… [is] pardoning… the remnant.” In other words, He does not stay angry with them but delights to show them mercy. He treads their sins underfoot and hurls their sins into the depth of the ocean. He fulfils His promise to Abraham in them, as He walks with them through every circumstance of their lives. Are you part of the remnant? Joining the remnant means standing apart from the crowd—the crowd at school, in business, or in the highstreet. You can join the remnant today. You can come to the risen Lord Jesus Christ and say to Him: Do this for me! Remove the condemnation of God’s wrath from me. Hurl my past sins into the depths of the sea. Walk with me, teach me, lead me into a new life that pleases you. Crush my future temptations under your feet. This is what He wants to do for you, and when you begin to experience it, you will say with Micah: “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant?”Is your life going to go on the same after hearing that God pardons sin and forgives transgression? Or are you going to turn to God in repentance and ask for His pardon and for His help to begin living a different life?

He will tread our iniquities underfoot.Micah 7:19If hurling your iniquities into the depths of the sea refers to God’s deliverance from past sins, then treading your sins underfoot must refer to temptations that still lie ahead of you. Here you are going out into another week, and Satan has already set some snares in your path. Every one of us will face specific temptations this week. And you will be tested at the point where you’re most vulnerable. Here’s the good news: God is walking with you. As you encounter snares, traps, and temptations on your path this week, the Lord will tread your sins underfoot. Past sins will not master you and future temptations will not overwhelm you. Why not? Because God will walk with you. One reason people commonly give for not wanting to commit to Jesus Christ is simply this: “I couldn’t keep it up. My past sins would catch up with me, and my future temptations would overwhelm me.” Listen, God has already thought about all that. He has made provisions for you. In Christ, God’s anger is ended, your past has been dealt with, and your future is secure.Are you afraid that you can’t keep up the Christian life? Let today be the day that you commit to following Jesus, trusting in the provisions that He has made for you.

You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.Micah 7:19This is a marvellous picture: God hurling your iniquities into the depths of the sea. A pastor once said: “When God throws your sins into the depths of the sea, He puts up a big sign that says. No fishing!” When God forgives. He takes the past with all of its guilt, and it is gone. But there is something else here that comes fresh from this passage. This phrase about God “casting” something into the depths of the sea refers back to the story of how God’s people came out of Egypt. Micah was thinking about the Exodus when he wrote these words: “As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvellous things” (7:15). Micah has this picture in mind: “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea” (Ex. 15:4). When God saves you—you know what’s going to happen—your sins will come chasing after you. Past sins usually lead to present struggles. But here is God’s promise: When your past sins come after you, God will be with you, and He will deliver you from their power, just like He delivered His people from the power of the Egyptian army. He will hurl them into the depths of the sea. This is much more than forgiveness. It is deliverance. He breaks the power of cancelled sin. He sets the prisoner free.Do you feel like your past sins are catching up with you? Take God at His word: “Sin will have no dominion over you” (Rom. 6:14).

He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.Micah 7:18It's hard to think of any issue that causes more difficulty in the minds and hearts of so many people than the anger of God. We tend to suppress the idea of God’s anger or deny it. You’ve likely heard someone say, “I grew up believing in an angry God, but now I believe in a loving God.” What do you do with the passages in the Bible that speak of God’s anger? Many Christians live with an underlying feeling that God is angry with them. There is this strange contradiction of saying you don’t believe in an angry God but feeling that God is always angry with you. If you find it difficult to believe that God really loves you, it may be that you too have this underlying feeling that God is angry with you. If that is the case, you will feel that God might at best tolerate you, but He certainly will not delight in you. The Bible makes it clear that God is irreconcilably opposed to evil and irrepressibly filled with love. It's hard for us to understand how these two things can both be true at the same time. Our natural tendency is to grasp hold of one and lose our grip on the other. If you can’t see how God’s love and justice meet, you will either feel that His love is not really love, it’s just a mask over His anger, or you will feel that His anger is not really anger, it’s just a mask over His love. We desperately need to see how God’s love and justice meet.Do you feel God is angry at you all or most of the time?

I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgement for me.Micah 7:9All of our experience indicates that we seem more under God’s judgement than His blessing. Our culture is falling apart. Families are breaking up. God is hiding His face from us. We have sinned and we are under the wrath of God. Where do you go from there? Micah’s hope in the darkness is that this same God whose judgement we have brought on ourselves will come and take up our case. His hope is that God will take His stand with us (not against us), that He will act for us, and that God Himself would plead the case of His people. Imagine Almighty God speaking in your defence. Micah says, “If only that could happen!” Our only hope is if God should plead our case, if God should step in and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and that is precisely what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. That’s the gospel. God came down among us in Jesus Christ. He came and stood with us. The wrath of God was poured out on Jesus when He died on the cross. God bore the wrath of God. Jesus rose on the third day. He ascended into heaven where He pleads the case of all His people. Micah’s hope for restoring families and changing communities lies in the gospel. He’s not looking for a programme or a set of techniques to make this happen, and he’s not starting a new movement. He’s looking to the gospel.Where does your hope for restoration and change lie?

But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation.Micah 7:7God may seem hidden to us, but He is never absent. He may seem far away, but He is always at work. Micah knows God is near, and that is why He watches and waits. Fishermen know about this. You don't see any fish, but you know they’re there, so you watch and you wait expectantly. God may hide His face from you for a time, but not forever. If you find yourself in great darkness, watch to see what God will do. Watch what He does in your own heart. Watch what He does in the people around you. Watch what He does among other believers. God’s purpose often takes us through the darkness, but it never ends there. You may think of waiting as something you have to endure in order to get what you want. But God speaks about waiting as the way that we grow when we don’t have what we want. God’s promises are as good in the darkness as they are in the light. That’s why Micah can say, “When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me" (7:8). God works in the darkness as much as He does in the light. God’s greatest work was done in total darkness during three hours when Jesus hung on the cross. Nobody could see what He was doing then. If ever there was a moment when it seemed God was hiding, it was on the cross where He splintered the gates of hell and opened up access to heaven. But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me… When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me (7:7-8). That’s faith.Where do you need to exercise faith today by watching and waiting?

Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?”Micah 7:10All Micah can say is that things will be different in the future, but as he writes, he has no compelling answer to offer the cynic who says, “Where is your God?” Micah is surrounded by trouble and God is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t know where God is, or what God is doing. This is wonderfully helpful, because surely all of us have been there—an illness strikes, a church splits, a business collapses, a son or daughter abandons the faith, or a tragedy strikes the family. If a cynic came and said to you: "Well then, where is your God in all this?" You would be stuck for an answer. You would have to say, "I don’t have a clue." This is an important (but often neglected) truth about the God of the Bible. He is the God who hides Himself. This is paradoxical because He is also the God who reveals Himself, otherwise we would not know anything at all about Him. But the Bible makes it quite clear that sometimes God hides Himself, even from His own people. “Truly, you are a God who hides himself” (Isa. 45:15). Sometimes we can’t make sense of our lives and we just don’t know what God is doing. But thankfully, our Christian faith does not rest on things always making sense to us. It rests on God’s promises. If you expect to always know what God is doing in your life, your family, your church, or your country, you will be disappointed. The secret things belong to the Lord. He hides them from us.Have you experienced God hiding Himself from you?

Woe is me!Micah 7:1In order to understand Micah’s misery, we must look at three things that were happening among God’s people. The loss of godly character. Micah says, “The godly has perished from the earth” (7:2). He is talking about a loss of godly character: “I look at how people are living, and all I can see is godly character being swept away. I look for models of upright living, but I’m not seeing them.” The rise of self-interest. “As I look across the country,” Micah is saying, “here is what I see: The ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire—they all conspire together” (7:3). It’s all about pressure groups with their own agendas and self-interest that has replaced the common good. And when that happens, family life starts falling apart. The breakdown of family life. Micah saw something deeply distressing: “guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother” (7:5-6). He observed a loss of trust between husbands and wives, and a loss of respect between kids and parents. What’s breaking Micah’s heart is that this is happening among God’s people. Micah says, “As I look at what is happening among God’s people, it breaks my heart!”What concerns you most: the loss of godly character, the rise of self-interest, or the breakdown of the family in the culture and among God’s people?

He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.Micah 7:19When Jesus came preaching the message of the gospel, He said, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). But too often we’ve cut that in half. We sometimes drop the “repent,” and go strictly with “believe the gospel.” The result is “believers” who are little different from the world around them. Dr. Alan Redpath used to say, “God has not promised to forgive one sin that you will not forsake.” God is not in the business of ferrying unchanged people into heaven. God is calling us to a different way of life, marked by justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These are the marks of a person who walks with Him. This is our calling. The good news of the gospel is that God offers to deal with you on the basis of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. He offered His firstborn Son for the sin of your soul. Christ bore your sentence on the cross. He got the justice so that you could have the mercy, and God is faithful to that. But the way you receive that mercy is to enter a relationship with Christ, who says, “Follow me.” He invites you to walk humbly with Him, and to treat others in the same way that He has dealt with you—in justice, mercy, and faithfulness.Have you been expecting God to forgive sins that you have not yet forsaken? Take some time now to talk with Him about this.

What does the Lord require of you but… to walk humbly with your God?Micah 6:8If you want to walk with God, you need to get on the path where He is—the path of justice and mercy. God says to us: "If you get on that path, you will find me there." God is the God of justice and mercy. This is what the cross is all about: God’s justice was poured out on Jesus so that God’s mercy could be poured out on us. There is a story about a devoted monk from the tenth century. All his life, he longed for Christ to appear visibly to him. He prayed for this every day for years: "Lord. I want to see you. I have given my life to you. Won’t you appear to me once?” Then it happened. The monk looked up and the Lord was standing in his cell. He was completely overcome. But at that same moment, the bell over the door of the monastery rang. The monk knew why. Every day beggars came to the monastery looking for bread. The monks had a roster for handing out bread, and that day it was his turn. He faced an agonising decision. Should he ignore the beggar and stay with Christ? Or should he leave Christ and go to the beggar? What should he do? What would you have done? The monk slowly rose from his knees, took the bread, and gave it to the beggar. Then he slowly walked back to his cell. To his absolute astonishment, he saw Christ waiting for him. He fell to his knees. Then Christ spoke: “If you had not gone, I would not have stayed.”Do you want to walk with God and know the presence of Jesus? Go and find some way to serve a person in need, and you will find that His presence is with you.

What does the Lord require of you but… to love kindness?Micah 6:8The second dimension of our calling is to love kindness or mercy. To love mercy is not merely to show mercy, but to love it. People who love mercy look for any opportunity to show it. We’ve talked about ways in which you may have wronged other people, but there are also situations in which other people have wronged you. Is there anyone in the business world who has not been treated unjustly? If someone has wronged you, it is very likely that at some point God may bring about circumstances in which you have an opportunity to settle the score. What are you going to do? You can embarrass, humiliate, cold shoulder, penalise, ruin, or destroy that person. The options are endless, and delicious. Maybe you had years of conflict with your father, so you punished him by not allowing him to see your children. Now he has died and you wish you had not done that. What you do when God puts you in a position where you can get even, will reveal a great deal about your character. What did Jesus do? Remember the story about the Pharisees who somehow caught a woman in the act of adultery and brought her to Jesus. He loved mercy by releasing her and telling her to “Go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11).What difference would it make if you went out this week, actively looking for opportunities to show mercy? What if you did that for a month, a year, or a lifetime?

What does the LORD require of you but to do justice?Micah 6:8To “do justice” means you do what is right even when it is costly. You pursue integrity rather than convenience. It means asking, “How can I give full value?” rather than wondering, "What can I get away with?" It means refusing to take advantage of someone who is vulnerable. It means treating the weak the same way you would treat the strong. Acting justly means standing up for someone who is vulnerable, the person who is bullied at school, and the believer who is persecuted. It means showing proper respect to every person as a man or woman made in the image of God. Always speak and act in private in a way that would not make you ashamed if it were made public. That’s how every Christian should live. One day we will all stand before the judgement seat of Christ, and everything you do and say in secret will be brought out into the open. God will not ask you, “How many prayer meetings did you attend?” Or “How many times did you take communion?” But “Tell me how you dealt with that complaint.” Or “Tell me about the accounts you presented during that merger back in 1997.” Or “Tell me why you didn’t hire that person of colour. You said they weren't qualified. Was that really the truth?” There are some situations in which you can make restoration, and if there is any way of doing that, you should do it. Zacchaeus knew who he had taken money from when he shouldn’t have, and he gave them back four times as much (Luke 19:8). The truth is that most of what we have done wrong can’t be put right. God knows that. But you can make a new commitment to justice today.What would it look like for you to make a new commitment to justice today?

With what shall I come before the LORD… Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?Micah 6:6These are the words of someone who holds up his hands and says, “You got me. I’m guilty. Now what do I do?” Our first instinct when we feel guilty is to become religious (burnt offerings). “This doesn’t feel right. Maybe we could give something to the church? Or do some work around the church?” Notice the ascending scale in the plea bargain. It starts with a few year-old calves. But that doesn’t feel like enough. What about thousands of rams? If that doesn’t cut it, what else can I offer? What do you want from me? "Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (6:7). This is a grandiose gesture. “Maybe I should sell my cabin in the country, or become a priest, or a missionary?” How do we deal with this guilt? That’s where we come to this marvellous answer: “He has told you, O man, what is good: and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8). God is saying, “I want you to separate yourself from the sin of the city, not by coming out of the business world, but by doing business in a different way.” If you belong to Jesus Christ, God is not looking for you to be religious. Putting a veneer of religion over an unchanged life won’t impress anyone, and it certainly won’t impress God. Your calling is to a life marked by justice, mercy, and faithfulness.Which one of these do you think God wants to talk to you about today: Are you acting justly? Do you love mercy? Are you walking humbly with God?

The voice of the Lord cries to the city…"Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked?"Micah 6:9-10Some folks had become pretty wealthy, but God has some questions about how they made all their money. This hits pretty close to home. Maybe you have done well in business, but you feel uncomfortable about how you made your money. You look back at the things you did, the decisions you made, and your conscience isn’t clear. God gets specific: "Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights?” (6:11). When trading was done in those days, what was sold would be weighed on balancing scales, using stones as weights. The stones would be marked with their weight, and you carried them around in a bag. A “bag of deceitful weights'' was a bag of stones falsely marked. A customer might pay for two pounds of barley but walk away with only one. Many of us make our living in the business world. You know that it’s a jungle. The pressure is intense. There is competition over contracts and pressure to cut corners: “Your rich men… speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth” (6:12). Does that sound like business in our city?If God were to say the words of Micah 6:9-10 to you, how would you respond?

“I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.”Micah 6:4God was saying to His people: “Your parents were slaves. If it had not been for me, that would have been your life too. But I stepped in and brought them out of Egypt. I made them my own and brought them into an entirely new position—freedom and blessing.” The Exodus was the definitive act of God that changed everything for His people in the Old Testament. It points forward to the death and resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament, in which God seals His new covenant that releases us from slavery to sin, and brings us into a new position as sons and daughters of God. God says, “I have blessed you. I have kept you. I have provided for you. I have kept my covenant with you.” And whatever difficulties you may have experienced in life. If you are in Christ, you know that this is true.If you are in Christ today? Reflect on the circumstances that changed everything for you, and how He released you from slavery to sin. If not, what would it mean for you to be set free from slavery to sin? What are you waiting for?

What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?Micah 6:8If you want to know the kind of life that God is calling you to lead, you won't find a better summary than Micah 6:8. The best way to understand this verse is to get the big picture of the whole chapter. What God says to His people here is clearly a response to what they had been saying about him: “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!” (6:3). These believers felt that God had been giving them unreasonable burdens to bear. All of us have times like this. Something goes wrong in your life or in your family, and you say, "What is God doing? Why is God inflicting this intolerable burden on me?” Sometimes we feel that the Lord has let us down. That's how it was in Micah’s day. The people of God weren’t happy with Him, and there was a lot of complaining, “God has let us down. Instead of blessing, He has given us great burdens. He is making life difficult for us." If you enjoy drama, you will love Micah 6. This is a courtroom drama. In any courtroom the natural place for God would be the position of the judge. But, in this scene, God is the prosecutor. God’s people had been making all kinds of charges and accusations against Him, and here God counters by bringing His own case against His people: "the Lord has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel” (6:2).Do you feel that the Lord has let you down? What would you want to say to Him?

Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.Jonah 2:8How does a person turn from his or her idols? There’s a one-word answer to this question—“love.” Maybe you are drawn to God, and yet something inside you holds back. We want to draw near to God, but how can we overcome this impulse to avoid Him? That’s why Jesus has come into the world. He came to seek and save the lost. Jesus told a story about a lost sheep. The sheep wandered off, hiding from the shepherd, and then got so far off the path that it could not find its way back. So, the shepherd came looking for the lost sheep. Christ came into the world because God loves you. He came to bring you back. He came to seek and save you from your idolatry. He gave Himself for you, laying down His life so that your idolatry might be forgiven. He came so that you may be weaned off your self-love and become a true lover and worshipper of God. He reaches out to embrace you, even while you are hiding from Him. And it takes a lot of energy to keep on resisting love like that. Jonah 2:8 says, “Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.” There are idols and there is love. You can cling to the idols and forfeit God’s love, or you can forfeit the idols and then you will receive the love. Think about the love that could be yours—saving love, redeeming love, love to make you more like Jesus, love for service, love for ministry.What’s your worthless idol? What is it that is so good in your life that it would make you ready to forfeit the love of God that could be yours?

You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.1 Thessalonians 1:9You were made for a God-centred life. You were made to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. “Turning from idols” means that you let God be God. It means that you worship God and love Him for who He is, and not as a means to some other end. John Piper makes this point well: I cannot say to my wife, “I feel a strong delight in you so that you will make me a nice meal.” That is not the way that delight works. It terminates on her, it does not have a nice meal in view. I cannot say to my son, “I love playing ball with you so that you will cut the grass.” If my heart really delights in playing ball with him, that delight cannot be performed as a means of getting him to do something. If you say, “I love you,” to your wife or to your son because you want a nice meal or the grass cut, that’s not love at all—it is manipulation. When something you want from God becomes more important than God Himself, that’s idolatry. If you have come to see God as the provider of your wish list, you have fallen into idolatry. It’s time to turn from your idols.Where do you see evidence that you may be trying to manipulate God?

I will cut off your horses from among you and will destroy your chariots; and I will cut off the cities of your land… and I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes; and I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands; and I will root out your Asherah images from among you and destroy your cities. And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey.Micah 5:10-15Focus on the verbs. This is the action God says He will take: He will “cut off” (5:10), “destroy” (5:10), “throw down” (5:11), “root out” (5:14), and “execute vengeance” (5:15) on all idols. Notice the subject. God is telling us that this is something that He himself will do directly. “I will cut off your horses” (5:10) “I will destroy your chariots” (5:10) “I will cut off the cities of your land” (5:11) “I will cut off sorceries from your hand” (5:12) “I will cut off your carved images” (5:13) “I will root out your Asherah images” (5:14) “I will execute vengeance in anger and wrath” (5:15) God does not tell us to do these things. It is not for us to bring down the causes that assert themselves in the face of God. He will dethrone all other gods. There is an Old Testament story about a time when the ark of God was taken by the Philistines and put in Dagon’s temple. In the morning Dagon had fallen over, so the attendant set him up again. But the next morning, Dagon had fallen again, only this time his head and his hands were smashed on the floor. Only the stump of Dagon was left (1 Samuel 5). God will vindicate His own name. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that He is Lord (Phil. 2:9-11).What is your reaction to this?

“I am the LORD, and there is no other.”Isaiah 45:6Everything in the created order belongs to a class— planets, fish, birds, animals, and humans-but God is in a class of His own. That’s what we mean when we say, “God is holy.” He is set apart from everything else. John Piper says, “Diamonds are valuable because they are rare and hard to make. God is infinitely valuable because He is the rarest of all beings and cannot be made at all, nor was He ever made. If I were a collector of rare treasures and could somehow have God in my treasury, I would be wealthier than all the collectors of all the rarest treasures that exist outside God.” God is in a class of His own. That means that anyone or anything that wants to pose as God is stealing the identity that belongs to Him alone. Imagine someone stealing your credit card and then spending thousands of pounds with it. That’s identity theft—taking what belongs to another person and using it as if it were your own. Whenever anyone or anything in the created order takes the place of first importance, you are dealing with the ultimate identity theft. Only God is God: "I am the LORD, and there is no other” (Isa. 45:6). The great offence of idolatry is that something or someone has the audacity to pose in the place of God.Do you see why idolatry is such a serious offence against God?

“In that day,” declares the LORD, “I will cut off your horses from among you and will destroy your chariots.”Micah 5:10Dr. Walter Kaiser points out four dimensions of idolatry that can be found in Micah 5: Self-help. “I will cut off your horses from among you and will destroy your chariots” (5:10). This is about self- confidence: "We can do it!" What room is there for God if there is nothing you cannot do? “Believe in yourself. You’ve got the horses.” That’s idolatry. But the truth is, your next breath is sustained by the hand of Almighty God. Self-defence. “I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds” (5:11). This is about the security you build for yourself-financial security, your career, and the achievements that put you in a position of strength. Putting these in the place of God is idolatry. Self-deception. “I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes” (5:12). G. K. Chesterton said, “When men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.” Where God is not known, superstition abounds. Self-worship. “I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands” (5:13). This is about what “I” have achieved, who “I” have become, and what “I” can offer in the marketplace—that’s idolatry.In which of these four areas do you most need to look away from yourself to God?

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”John 5:39-40There is no better place to hide from God than religion. Being religious allows you to think you’re spiritual even while you are avoiding God. It is possible to tell yourself that you are seeking God, while what you are really doing is hiding from Him. That’s what the Pharisees did. They were big on moral values and Bible study. They devoted their lives to proving what good, upright people they were, but according to Jesus, the whole thing was a massive exercise in avoiding a real encounter with God. Much of religion is like “missing the forest for the trees,” offering lifelong opportunities for hiding from God. This is Satan’s masterpiece of deception—to put people in a position where they think that they are seeking God, when what they are really doing is avoiding Him. Many people see the pervasiveness of religion in the world as evidence of how much people really want to find God. But the Bible's perspective is that it is actually evidence of how far we will go to avoid Him.Where do you most clearly see your own tendency to hide from God in religion?

"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”Jeremiah 29:13Why do idols exist? Here are two reasons: Our attraction to God. Every human being is made in the image of God. That’s true of the most messed up, dysfunctional, twisted person you can think of. It is also true of you. That's why wherever you go, you will find that human beings are engaged in some kind of spiritual search. It cannot be stamped out. Communism tried to eliminate religion, and it was a total failure. There is a God-shaped hole at the centre of every life that only God can fill. Our avoidance of God. If you were to study the religions of the world, you would conclude that some kind of spiritual search is going on. But you would also be struck by the fact that different religions lead us in many different directions. Why is that? Because, alongside our deep attraction to God, human beings are experts at avoiding God. Back in the Garden of Eden, God came to Adam, who was hiding: “Where are you, [Adam]?” (Gen. 3:9). Why doesn’t Adam want to come out and walk with God? Because he knows he has sinned. When you know that you have sinned against God, you won’t want God showing up. And if He does, your first instinct is to hide. We are drawn to seek after God, but at the same time we hide from Him. This is the ultimate game of “hide and seek,” and we won’t make much progress unless God comes and seeks after us. And that is precisely what He has done in Jesus Christ.Do you find yourself sometimes seeking God and sometimes hiding from Him?

“You shall bow down no more to the work of your hands.”Micah 5:13It’s dangerously easy to turn God’s good gifts into idols. Adam was made to enjoy a relationship with God. Adam had that relationship before he had a home in Eden, before he had work in the garden, and before God gave him a wife. The order is important. God gave Adam the gift of marriage. But he was not made for marriage. Marriage is not the ultimate purpose; it is a good gift from God in which you can pursue the ultimate purpose. God gave Adam the gift of work. But he was not made for work. Work isn’t the ultimate purpose. It is a good gift from God in which you pursue the ultimate purpose. God gave Adam and Eve a home in Eden. But they were not made for the home. The home is not the ultimate purpose. It is a good gift from God in which you can pursue the ultimate purpose. What is the ultimate purpose? You were made to enter a relationship of love with almighty God in which you share His life, His work, His family, and His joy—for time and for eternity. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. This is why Christian ministry must always be God- centred (Christ-centered). The purpose of ministry is not to glorify yourself and enjoy yourself forever, but to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.Where do you find it easiest (most tempting) to turn God’s good gifts into idols?

“I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you.”Micah 5:13Notice the word “your” in verse 13. Idolatry had taken root among God’s own people. Micah is talking to the church crowd. Idolatry is worshipping and serving created things rather than the Creator. The apostle Paul speaks about this: “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). Idolatry is when a person says, “I can play the role of God.” It started with Satan, and he enticed the first man and woman with the same prospect: “You will be like God” (Gen. 3:5). This is what modernism and postmodernism are all about. Modernism (20th century): Darwin’s evolutionary theory caused people to think of man as his own “god,” emerging triumphant out of the swamp, and to believe that science and education would lead us to a perfect world. Well, it took two world wars (and the unparalleled bloodshed that followed) to shatter that illusion. Mankind could not take the place of God. Postmodernism (21st century): Instead of the supremacy of the human race, now we have the supremacy of the human individual: “What I feel, what I want. There is no truth above my truth, no values above my values, no purpose above my purpose.” The supreme questions are: What do you think? What do you want? How do you define success? The idolatry of modernism was: “We can play the role of God. We can create a perfect world.” The idolatry of Postmodernism is: “I can play the role of God. I can be my own God.” Either way, we are talking about worshipping created things rather than the Creator.Do you see any “modernism” or “postmodernism” around you or in yourself?