The 260 Journey

Day 13 Today’s Reading: Matthew 13 Every day as you read one chapter of the New Testament, the goal is more than just experiencing a feeling of accomplishment but to grow and become more like Christ. Sometimes when you struggle to find time for God’s Word, it isn’t because you’re busy, it is because you’re experiencing spiritual warfare! This book is a supernatural book and changes people’s lives. That’s why it’s hard to read the Bible. Jesus explained about this in today’s Scripture reading. In Matthew 13, Jesus told seven parables, or Kingdom stories. The most famous parable in this chapter is called the sower and the seed. Jesus used the surroundings of the people, more specifically the agricultural fields, to explain the battle that goes on to stop the Word of God from taking root in people’s lives and changing them. Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. Others fell on the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears let him hear. (Matthew 13:3-9) His big point was this: Satan sees what God’s Word can do in people’s lives and so he will do whatever he can to stop it from producing in you. The seed being planted in the story is the Bible, God’s Word, and it faces challenges to take root and produce. Challenge #1: the devil. That is the seed on the roadside. The moment you read the Bible or listen to a sermon, Satan waits to steal that Word because it is powerful. Sin will keep you from the Bible or the Bible will keep you from sin. Challenge #2: difficulties. That is the seed that takes root but does not go deep. The way you win against difficulties is through depth. Go deep in God. Go deep in His Word. Challenge #3: distractions. Jesus said the weeds that choke the seeds are the worries of the world and deceitfulness of riches. If you’re too busy to read the Bible, you’re too busy. And yet there are those who will get through these hurdles and produce fruit with their lives. Jesus called them seeds that grow in good soil and produce a good crop—a good God-honoring life. The devil will challenge every word and chapter you read in the Bible, because he knows what it can do. When you signed up for this 260 Journey, you also signed up for a battle. But it’s a winnable battle! If you want to win at it, start treating your Bible like you treat your cell phone. Ever wonder what would happen if we did that? • What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets? • What if we scrolled through it several times a day? • What if we turned back to get it if we forgot it? • What if we used it to receive messages from the text? • What if we treated it as though we couldn’t live without it? • What if we gave it to kids as gifts? • What if we used it when we traveled? • What if we used it in case of emergency? And something even better: unlike our cell phones, we don’t have to worry about our Bible being disconnected, because Jesus already paid the bill. The best protection against Satan’s lies is to know God’s truth. The next time you find yourself struggling to read the Bible, remember who’s behind that struggle and then remember that you were meant for the good soil.

Day 12 Today’s Reading: Matthew 12 While I am writing today’s devotional, a television show about Jack Ryan, the fictional CIA analyst, is trending online. Some knew him as Harrison Ford; for others, he was Chris Pine; and for us old folks, we knew him as Alec Baldwin. Jack Ryan is Tom Clancy’s creation. And those actors portrayed him in the movie versions of Clancy’s thriller books, such as The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears, Without Remorse. His works are always very thick, about five hundred to seven hundred pages long. There are a half million to three-quarter million words in an average Tom Clancy novel.  How long would it take you to say as many words as he writes in one of his books? According to researchers, people open their mouths an average of seven hundred times in a day. In those seven hundred times, you will use an average of eighteen thousand words a day. Those eighteen thousand words translate to about fifty-four printed pages. That means that in one year, an average person would fill . . . sixty-six books of eight hundred pages each. Every year you write with your words sixty-six volumes that are larger than those Tom Clancy novels. That’s a lot of words! And what makes it even more impressive is that each of those words matter. Why do those eighteen thousand words each day matter? We find the answer in the Old Testament book of Proverbs: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (18:21). Another version says it like this: “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose” (MSG). That’s why we take our eighteen thousand really seriously. So here’s the question: What is your life-and-death ratio on your eighteen thousand? Is it that big of a deal? Let’s see what Jesus said about it in today’s reading: For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of Judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (Matthew 12:34-37) You and I will be held accountable for every careless word we speak, so yes, we definitely need to take our eighteen thousand seriously. It’s a scary thought, isn’t it? God thinks our words are so important and can make such a difference in someone’s life that he holds us accountable for them. Proverbs 12:25 tells us, “Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad.” So here’s a challenge for you: give someone a good word today. Text it, say it, write it. But choose your words to bring life. Recently my family and I were traveling. As we sat together on the long flight, I watched my youngest daughter write a five-sentence note of thanks to the flight attendant. My daughter wanted to give life with her words. One good word can change anxiety into gladness. Your words have that capability. Do something useful with your eighteen thousand today.

Day 11 Today’s Reading: Matthew 11 Conditions or circumstances can affect perspectives.  What goes on in our lives can determine our points of view and how we define important things—most seriously, our view and definition of God. Sometimes our circumstances can take us from living an exclamation-mark life to living a question-mark life. Let me give you an example of what I mean. John the Baptist was an exclamation man. He was known as a prophet who called people to repent of their sins and baptized them. He’s most well-known, however, as the one who baptized Jesus. Read the following verses about him from the book of John—and pay close attention to John the Baptist’s punctuation: The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29) Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:35-36) We see two exclamation-point verses here. He speaks with certainty and confidence. But then something happens. A change in John’s circumstances began to change his perspective: “When John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” (Matthew 11:2-3). What happened to the exclamation points? John went from an exclamation to a question. And it all hinged on two words—two huge words: “John . . . imprisoned.” These two words changed his perspective on Jesus. His exclamation points got punched in the gut and doubled over into a question mark. That’s what a question mark is—an exclamation point that got punched in the gut. Here’s what John needed to know and what we need to remember: • We change, but God doesn’t.  • Circumstances change, but God doesn’t.  • Life changes, but God doesn’t.  If Jesus was the Lamb of God two years earlier, John’s imprisonment doesn’t change who Jesus is. Our circumstances can’t make God any different. John let being in prison decide his definition of Jesus. Don’t let whatever circumstances arise in your life define Christ.  I’m in trouble.  I’m in debt.  I’m in a divorce.  I’m in a wheelchair.  I’m in court today. I’m in rehab. I’m in hot water. I’m in therapy.  I’m incarcerated. Those are circumstances; those don’t define who Christ is. Know that with all that going on, you can still be in Christ. The “in Christ” part of you doesn’t change—no matter your situation—because He doesn’t change. As the writer of Hebrews assures us: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8, TLB). Jesus’ response to (and about) John is pretty amazing: This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, Who Will prepare your Way before you.’ Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! (Matthew 11:10-11) John was in the worst position he had ever been in. And Jesus said that this did not change what He thought about him. Jesus was saying, When your exclamation-mark life changes to a question-mark life, I am still who I am, and I do not change my exclamation-mark feelings about you. Just because you doubt Me doesn’t mean I doubt My love for you and what I think of you. Even in your worst state, you are still the greatest to God. Jesus gave the highest statement of John after John gave Him the lowest statement. John asked, “Who are You really?” And Jesus responded that no one has been born greater than John. That’s pretty amazing, right? So, if your Sunday exclamation point got punched in the gut on Monday, straighten up a

Day 10 Today’s Reading: Matthew 10 I want to tell you the history of two groups of people who are in the New Testament—the tax collectors and the zealots. The tax collectors were Jews who collected taxes from fellow Jews for the Roman Empire. They made their living by charging an extra amount on top of what everyone owed. Some of them made more than a living. They exacted any amount they could and became well to do. The Jews considered tax collectors to be traitors, because they “stole” money; they became wealthy by collaborating with Roman authorities at the expense of their own people. And their own people hated them. The Zealots strongly believed that the Romans should not rule their land— and they confronted any opposition directly, even considering violence an appropriate response. Within the Zealots were a subgroup called the Sicarii, or “dagger men.” Sicarii  were a group of rebels, most widely known today as the group who fought against the Roman authorities and took Masada, Herod’s famous fortress in the desert. Today we would call them first-century terrorists. They murdered in the name of religion. And they hated traitors— more specifically, tax collectors. Zealots were the terrorists. Tax collectors were the traitors. Put those two together, and it isn’t going to be good. Call 911. And that’s where we find ourselves in today’s reading: "Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him. These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them." (Matthew 10:1-5, emphasis added) Think about that. Jesus put a zealot and a tax collector close to each other as His disciples. Out of the twelve disciples, two of them were sworn enemies of each other: Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector. Matthew 10 even labels them for us, so we know of the potential conflict. And Jesus specifically called each of them to follow Him and to work and live together. It wasn’t an accident or a mistake. He did that on purpose! What does that have to do with you and me? Our tendency is to hang out with people we like and who are like us. Think about your church. If you choose a church based upon the people whom you have stuff in common with, then you want a club not a church. What I love about Jesus’ disciple list is that it doesn’t say, “Peter, a fisherman; John, a fisherman; Simon, a fisherman . . .” Their descriptions show us that Jesus chose people who couldn’t be more opposite. God can put you with people who irritate you. That is how sandpaper works. You get rubbed so the rough edges come off of you, you can be smooth, and you become more like Christ. You don’t grow by being with people who are just like you. (You become boring but you don’t grow.) Oswald Chambers explained it this way: “God can never make us wine if we object to the fingers He uses to crush us with. If God would only use His own fingers and make us wine. But when He uses someone whom we dislike, and makes those the crushers . . . we object.” God may have put the tax collector with the zealot in your church. Why? Because this is a church, not a club. Because the church is about making people become more like Christ. It represents Jesus’ loves and not your likes. And He loves everyone—even the people you might think are the worst. So the next time your zealot nature sits next to an irritating tax collector,

Day 9 Today’s Reading: Matthew 9 Matthew 9 is a chapter that is spilling over with healing and faith. A paralyzed man is brought to Jesus by his friends in verse 2 and Jesus sees the faith of the friends and the paralyzed man walks. A woman with a twelve-year disease is free in an instant. Jesus says to her, “Your faith has made you well” (verse 22). Two blind men finally see through their eyes after Jesus said to them, “It shall be done to you according to your faith” (verse 29). Faith and healing. Those two things are inseparable. So many people today need healing in their bodies. It seems that we want our healing, but we have never checked our faith. We probably should get a handle on faith. This small word is huge. Let’s see if we can unpack it in the next few minutes. Faith has to be a huge thing, if in fact: • It’s how we get saved • It’s how people get healed • It’s how we please God • It’s how we walk the Christian life—even a little still does big things • It’s what makes prayer powerful Almost everything we do as a Christian involves faith. So I think we better get a handle on it and realize what it is. Faith . . . • honors God and God honors faith. • cashes God’s checks. • won’t get you everything you want, but it will get you everything that God wants you to have. Only two times does the Bible devote an entire chapter to one topic. The first is love in 1 Corinthians 13. The second is what we are discussing today—faith, which we find in Hebrews 11. Though we aren’t there yet in our 260 journey, today’s reading helps us understand the power of faith. As we see in Matthew 9, God takes faith very seriously. As I’ve heard it said, “Faith is like WiFi. It’s invisible but it has the power to connect you to what you need!”  You exercise faith everyday. Let’s take one example of the doctor and the pharmacist. You go to a doctor whose name you cannot pronounce and whose degrees you have never verified. He gives you a prescription you cannot read. You take it to a pharmacist you have never met. He gives you a chemical compound you do not understand. Then you go home and take the pill according to the instructions on the bottle. All in trusting, sincere faith. When it comes to your spiritual life, you need faith to get over the hurdle of determining that God exists. You use faith for the next hurdle: Who is this God you gave your life to? Then you face another hurdle that takes faith—fighting the devil as he tries to mess you up on the greatness of God. Why? Because biblical faith always depends upon its object. You can have little faith in thick ice and still survive; you can have great faith with thin ice and drown—it’s the object that is the issue. The Bible never says to believe only; it says to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible never says to have faith only; it says to “have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). So if the God you put your faith in is misconstrued, then so is your faith. The best way to grow faith is to do as Peter tells us to, “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). And the best place to start that growth, in order to know God, is through reading and studying the Word of God. The Bible is God’s bio. The more we read it, the more our faith strengthens. Faith needs an object. The object—the bulls eye—of our faith is God and who He is. Your faith is only as great as the God you believe in. He must be the object of your faith. Since God does not change, your faith can still be strong in tough times. You don’t need great faith, you need faith in a great God. As Charles H. Spurgeon once said, “Oh, brethren, be great believers! Little faith will bring your souls to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven

Day 8 Today’s Reading: Matthew 8 Her name was Agnes and she was from Albania. In 1928, at age eighteen, she went to Ireland and became a nun. Almost twenty years later, in 1946, she received what she described as a call within the call. As she was riding on a train, her heart heard the Lord tell her to help the most rejected people in society, the poorest of the poor—the throw-away people of Calcutta, India. It took her two years of fighting through the bureaucratic red tape to pursue that call. But she remained committed, and in 1950, Agnes Bojaxhiu founded the Missionaries of Charity. Agnes Bojaxhiu, of course, is Mother Teresa. Discussing that call within a call, she stated, “Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right there where you are—in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools. You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people, who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by society—completely forgotten, completely left alone. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.” We just finished reading the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher—Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7). Now we turn our attention to chapter 8. What interests me is not just the sermon, but what took place the day after the sermon—what we learn about in today’s reading of chapter 8. This is when the crowd shrinks to the individual. The audience now has a name. And we see it immediately in Matthew 8:1-2 (MSG): “Jesus came down the mountain with the cheers of the crowd still ringing in his ears. Then a leper appeared.” Life just got real. The worst disease came after the greatest sermon. You know what I’m talking about. After the singing and the preaching, there is debt, marriage problems, addictions, cancer, diabetes, divorce, and abuse. Chapter 8 is all about what happens on Monday—after the great and inspiring Sunday morning worship service. Chapter 8 is where there is no stage, no music, but people with a lot of problems who need help. Chapter 8 is about a lot of people, and all of them have an issue. And Jesus met every one—cleansing, healing, deliverance, words of truth. Think about this with me: • Chapters 5–7 is Sunday at church service • Chapter 8 is Monday through Saturday • Chapter 5–7 is about interacting with God • Chapter 8 is about how we interact with people No one did it better than Jesus: • Chapters 5–7, He is the preacher-teacher • Chapter 8, He is the doctor In chapter 8, His Monday included four encounters: • a leper • a Roman captain with a paralyzed staff member • His disciple Peter’s sick mother-in-law stuck in bed with a fever • two graveyard demoniacs who were causing havoc in town But this is important to notice: Jesus had compassion and healed them. The key word with Jesus, and when He sees someone in need, is compassion. To know the Bible, to know how to sing Christian songs, is important, but that doesn’t translate into making other people’s lives better when we meet them in a tragedy. You can’t be compassionate without people. Compassion needs people to sacrifice for. No one is compassionate alone. Our Calcuttas are right next to us. And they need our compassion. It’s about touching your city, your community, your neighbors, your family and friends. Every one of us has three resources to show compassion: time, treasure, and talents. Time: The Bible says, “To redeem the time” (Ephesians 5:16, KJV). To “redeem” it means to see it as valuable and get the best bang for your buck. The New American Standard Bible translates it as making the most of ou

Day 7 Today’s Reading: Matthew 7 A concerned husband went to see the family doctor. “I think my wife is deaf,” he said. “She never hears me the first time I say something. In fact, I often have to repeat things over and over.” “Go home tonight,” the doctor suggested. “Stand about fifteen feet from her, and say something. If she doesn’t reply, move about five feet closer and say it again. Keep doing this so we can get an idea of the severity of her deafness.” That night, the husband went home and did exactly as instructed. He stood about fifteen feet from his wife, who was standing in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. “Honey, what’s for dinner?” he said. When he received no response, he moved five feet closer and asked again. “Honey, what’s for dinner?” No reply. So he moved another five feet closer and repeated his question. But still no reply. Fed up and frustrated, he moved right behind her, and standing about an inch away, asked one final time, “Honey, what’s for dinner?” “For the fourth time,” she said, “chicken!” Guess who had the problem? Guess who was the deaf one? We can laugh over this story, but it tells a truth: we always assume it’s the other person who has the problem. Jesus addressed this issue in the last part of the Sermon on the Mount—and it gets really up close and personal. He called it logs and specks. "Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:1-3) Jesus was a carpenter so this illustration made sense. Jesus said, in essence, “How can you see the speck in others and yet miss your own log?” In other words, Jesus was saying that the little junk you see in other people and point out just reveals a lot of junk that’s in you, which you choose to ignore. Jesus called this type of person a hypocrite. I’ve heard a hypocrite described this way: "A hypocrite is a person who is easy on himself but hard on others, but a godly man is hard on himself and easy on others." It’s much harder to judge yourself than to judge others. Jesus’ challenge is for us to keep our eyes on ourselves first and be especially sure to admonish ourselves before you and I admonish any of our friends. When practicing this, some good advice to start with is this: • It would be wiser to accuse yourself and excuse others. • If you want to be endured, then learn to endure others. The fault lies not in our inability to see ourselves but in our unwillingness to see ourselves. As the great nineteenth-century preacher Charles H. Spurgeon aptly put it: “None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves.” I have asked couples in marriage counseling to name their logs before telling me their spouse’s specks. It’s amazing how hard it is for them to think of their own. We get in the way of ourselves. Instead we prefer to be the “Help and Speck Inspector.” If we go back to what Jesus was saying, He was showing us that logs are bigger than specks. Meaning that we have a bigger problem than those we judge. When we don’t start with “I’m the problem,” we have a long haul ahead of us in our relationships. Instead, we must always start with ourselves—not with the other person. If you want to judge, judge yourself first, is what Jesus said. Logs before specks, and logs take a long time to get rid of. You’ll be so busy getting rid of the log that you won’t have time for specks. Get this and you will build deep, meaningful and long-term relationships. London preacher

Day 6 Today’s Reading: Matthew 6 In the first part of chapter 6, Jesus spoke about three personal disciplines that are part of every Christian’s life: giving, praying, and fasting. Note that I said, these three disciplines are part of every Christian’s life. If you are a Christian, then they are to be part of your life as well. How do we know they should be part of our lives? Because as Jesus spoke about them, He used an important word before each of them. Jesus started off each of the three with the word when, which assumes we are already practicing them. When you give . . . When you pray . . . When you fast . . . As He discussed these disciplines, He wanted to guide us in the proper way to practice them. In each instance, Jesus used a second word that is an essential part: secret (see verses 4, 6 and 18). We are to do these things in secret. In other words, we aren’t supposed to flaunt the fact that we practice them. Why? Because there’s only to be one member of our audience who sees what we do: God. We do these things in secret—and the aftereffects of them go public. That’s the power of these disciplines, He explained. If we pursue them without anybody’s knowledge, we will receive a reward and everyone will benefit—they will always go public, or “in the open,” in their effect. Let me explain by using prayer as an example. Jesus said, “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6). When we dissect this sentence, we see the when (“when you pray”), the secret (“go into your inner room”), and in the open (your Father . . . will reward you). But I want you to see something else. Go back to the Scripture and count the number of times Jesus used the words you or yours. This is the only verse in the whole Bible that has the singular personal pronoun in it seven times: “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” Why is this important to note? Because Jesus was saying that you have a responsibility. You. But—and here’s the beautiful part of it—this responsibility is never a waste of time. Because your Father will reward you. You. The word reward means to clock in and get a paycheck. Jesus was saying that every time you pray, you clock in—you expect a paycheck. God pays His workers well. You will come out with way more than you put in. When Mother Teresa was alive, many who visited her and her Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta were surprised that every lunchtime they left their life-sustaining work in dispensaries and in the home for the dying. “Why do you go back so soon and not stay longer? Where do you go?” Mother Teresa responded, “We go to pray. We have learned that to work without prayer is to achieve only what is humanly possible and our desire is to be involved in divine possibilities.” We get to be involved in divine possibilities. When we give, when we pray, when we fast. Let’s show up today to our responsibilities. The pay-off is too good not to.

Day 5 Today’s Reading: Matthew 5 Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported a story on happiness in different nations around the world. The newspaper’s title gave away the happiness level of people living in the United States: “Richest Country, Saddest People—Any Coincidence?” According to a study jointly conducted by the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School, and based on more than 60,000 face-to-face interviews worldwide, the richest country—the United States—has the saddest people and is regarded as one of the unhappiest places on earth. Out of the fourteen countries surveyed, we have the highest rate of depression. We have the highest standard of living and yet we take more tranquilizers than anyone. And it seems that the more people have, the angrier they are. The happiest people on the planet? Nigerians.  And they have one of the lowest standards of living. I don’t believe Nigerians have the corner on the market, though. Believers do. Not feeling it? Today’s reading will help fix that. In Matthew 5, Jesus gives us His prescription for how to have happiness. In today’s through the next two days’ readings (Matthew 5–7), we find the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever walked the planet. It’s called the Sermon on the Mount. In this sermon, Jesus tells us how to be happy. It’s connected to eight verses, called the Beatitudes, which are structured this way: “Blessed are the . . . for they shall . . .” Some translations have it as, “Happy are those who . . .” It’s amazing that Jesus starts His first sermon with happiness. But what makes this crazy is that Jesus says what will make us happy or blessed are the very things we wouldn’t expect. I once heard theologian N. T. Wright say in a sermon, “The beatitudes of Jesus tell us that all the wrong people are going to be blessed; they are counterintuitive. God is turning everything upside down.” Let me read it to you from the Good News Translation: Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them! Happy are those who are humble; they will receive what God has promised! Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully! Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them! Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God! Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children! Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers. (Matthew 5:3-11) This is not what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount: Live like this and you will become a Christian. That’s impossible. What He is saying: Because you are a Christian, you can live like this and experience happiness. What to remember regarding the Beatitudes: 1. Happiness is found in character not in possessions. Every one of these Beatitudes is something internal, not external; something you are, not something you have. 2. God would never ask you to do or be something that is not possible. God never makes His Word, His promises, or His challenges unattainable. God never directs us into dead-ends. 3. God always leaves a gap (of dependency). You can’t practice the beatitudes without God. Which means you can’t be happy without God. These beatitudes are not natural for us. We need God to instill them into us and direct us. We look to God to help us. And He will. Eight times Je

Day 4 Today’s Reading: Matthew 4 It seems Jesus can’t even towel off and get dressed after being water baptized in the Jordan River before Satan shows up and challenges what Jesus has heard. We ended yesterday’s reading in Matthew 3 with hearing God speak. Today’s reading in Matthew 4 opens with hearing Satan speak. Remember that in Matthew 3 at Jesus’ water baptism, God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” And before Jesus could properly digest and process those words, Satan spoke. Satan’s message: Did God really say that? Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God . . . .” (Matthew 4:1-3, emphasis added) God the Father had just told him, “You are My Son” (Matthew 3:17). Now Satan was questioning what God had said to Jesus. In essence, he was asking, “Did God really say that . . . ?” This is not new. Satan was just shooting the same bullet he always does. Remember back to the beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 3, the devil did the same thing in the Garden of Eden with Eve. His first recorded words pose a question—but not just any question. He asked a question to humans about God. “Has God said . . . ?” (Genesis 3:1). In other words, “Did God really say that?” This is what you need to know: Whatever God backs, Satan attacks. Sometimes Satan’s attacks are the confirmations that you did hear from God and God did speak to you. As clear as God’s voice was for Jesus, Satan’s voice came in fast and clear. He did the same to Adam and Eve. He’ll do the same to you and me. No one is off limits—not Jesus, not the first family (Adam and Eve), not a child in the womb, not a pastor’s family. No one who follows God and tries to be obedient to Him. C. S. Lewis writes, “The enemy will not see you vanish into God’s company without an effort to reclaim you.” Why does Satan come after you? Not because you are bad, but because, as a child of God, you are valuable. If you are a thief, and that is what Satan is, you don’t break into abandon houses; you break into places you know has valuable stuff. Thomas Watson puts it this way: “Satan doth not tempt God’s children because they have sin in them, but because they have grace in them. Had they no grace he would not disturb them.” A thief will not assault an empty house, but where he thinks there is treasure. Several years ago Sotheby’s auction house in New York City had an auction. Here are some of the items that sold: • Napoleon’s toothbrush: $48,000 • Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s fake pearls: $256,000 • President John F. Kennedy’s wood golf clubs: $750,000 In and of themselves, they had worth, but what made them so extravagantly valuable? Not what they were by themselves, but whom they belonged to. Just as you had worth before you became a Christian, the day you got saved, your value skyrocketed. You just went from being “abandoned property” to being owned by the Creator of the Universe. Now since you are valuable, you are a target.

Day 3 Today’s Reading: Matthew 3 A little brother was jealous that his older brother was getting water baptized and he wasn’t. As his father instructed the older brother on what it meant and how special it was, the little guy left the room in tears because he wasn’t being baptized. His father followed him to find out why he was so upset. When the father asked the four-year-old what was wrong, the little boy said, “I want to be advertised too with my brother on Sunday.” When you get water baptized, you get also get advertised. It is a public declaration. It announces to everyone who you are following. But it doesn’t make you a Christian any more than saying that a wedding ring on your finger makes you married. My wedding ring doesn’t make me married, but it shows people that I am married. The ring is a symbol. And baptism is a symbol. To make it anything more than a symbol is dangerous. Water baptism, whether a spoonful or a tankful will never save anyone. But it is an important second step in our faith journey. Being water baptized differentiates the serious from the casual follower of Jesus. As Max Lucado says, “Baptism separates the tire kickers from the car buyers.” Some call them ordinances of the church, but really, communion and water baptism are mini-dramas of salvation using props—water, bread, and wine. Something very special happens every time one of these mini-dramas take place: they are not just events in the life of the church among believers; they are sacred moments for God to speak to us. That’s what happened to Jesus. After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17) God spoke after Jesus was water baptized: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God confirmed family. God confirmed His love. And so when we participate (practicing obedience), we do it because we love God (the motive of our obedience) and to hear God speak to us. God responds, “I love you too.” We all need that Voice out of heaven to speak to us. We live in a world crowded with voices all shouting at us: • You are not good enough! • You are not skinny enough! • You are not good looking enough! • You don’t make enough money! • You are not married! • You don’t have kids! Those voices label you over what I’m not. And yet God tells us, You belong to Me and you are greatly loved. We need to listen to and hear the Voice that Jesus heard at His baptism. As Steven Furtick writes, “The voice you believe will determine the future you experience.” God’s voice is where our identity is found and the searching stops. We can be assured that God’s voice tells us that He loves us and that He is pleased with us. The biggest temptation today is to seek an alternative identity to who God created us to be. We see it in the ways we answer the question, Who am I? • I am what I do—my job and career define me. But when I get old and can no longer do a job and I retire, I lose my identity. • I am what others say about me—people’s words about me have power, especially who is saying it. So I’m good when the talk about me is good, but I lose my identity when it’s negative. • I am what I have—I have a degree, health, good parents, good children, good salary, and security. But when I lose any of those things, I lose my identity. When we participate in the mini-dramas of salvation, we answer the identity question by hearing and embracing God’s voice. He says, You are God’s beloved. Heaven says that about you today. One of my dear friends reminds us, “There’s nothing you can do that

Day 2 Today’s Reading: Matthew 2 Obedience to God is such a powerful tool. Obedience to God will always keep you one step ahead of the enemy. Obedience to God brings you blessing. And it brings protection and puts you in the right place at the right time—exactly where God wants you to be. When we don’t obey God, we withhold from ourselves all that God has in store for us. An old friend, Joy Dawson, said this: “Disobeying God is the same as telling Him to hold back all of the blessings that come with obedience. That is not only stupidity, it’s insanity.” We find this idea of being obedient to God in today’s Scripture reading. Jesus has been born, which is epic. But what happens after the Christmas story is epic as well. The magi were heading to the place where Jesus was. They’d come to worship Him and to bring Him gifts. One of my favorite descriptions of their arrival is in verse 10 in the Message paraphrase: “They were in the right place! They had arrived at the right time!” Think about that. “They were in the right place. They had arrived at the right time.” I want a life like that. I want to be in the right place—at the right time. We only get there one way: by being obedient to God. Too many of us, though, believe we can handle things on their own. As John Maxwell said, “Most Christians are educated way beyond their level of obedience.” I know many people who are (education) smart but not (obedient) wise. Education smart is good and helpful, but it isn’t the same as obedient wise. You can’t become obedient wise through education. When you are wise, you will be at the right place at the right time. And wisdom comes from obedience. Joseph shows us this truth. After the magi leave, Joseph has a dream: After the scholars [the magi] were gone, God’s angel showed up again in Joseph’s dream and commanded, “Get up. Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Stay until further notice. . . . Joseph obeyed (Matthew 2:13, MSG). What happens next is monumental! King Herod, who learned about the Messiah through the magi, when they initially arrived in the area, commanded that every little boy two years old and younger who lived in Bethlehem was to be murdered. Here is the reality: Obedience to God keeps us one step ahead of the enemy. Think about it. Herod wanted to kill Jesus. Before that happened—first God gave Joseph a dream that told him to leave. And then—second—Herod sends his men on a killing spree. Because God called Joseph to obedience before Herod’s plan was enacted, and because Joseph obeyed, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were able to flee Bethlehem and find safety in Egypt. It was a forty-mile journey for the new family. So they were forty miles ahead of death and destruction, because God is always a first responder. But we have to obey to reap the benefits. As Brother Andrew said, “Whenever, wherever, however You want me, I’ll go. And I’ll begin this very minute. Lord, as I stand up from this place, and as I take my first step forward, will You consider this is a step toward complete obedience to You? I’ll call it the Step of Yes.” I have experienced this truth in my own life. I have watched it happen with a simple apology. I said something I should not have and the Holy Spirit convicted me and called me to go to that person and apologize. Conviction was my dream. And that apology kept that relationship forty miles ahead of the enemy’s narratives to harm it and kill it. Obedience keeps you and me forty miles ahead of death. Jesus said this about our enemy, the devil: “The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy” every child of God (John 10:10, msg). That’s his mission and his Herod-like plan every day. Obedience to God keeps us ahead of any steal-kill-and-destroy agenda. And when we are one step ahead, we are alway

Day 1 Today’s Reading: Matthew 1 The whole of the New Testament starts with today’s reading in Matthew 1. This is the story of stories—and it starts off all wrong. Most adventure stories begin with the wondrous “Once upon a time” so we know we’re in for something truly amazing. That’s the way the New Testament should begin, right? After all, what is more adventurous and exciting than the story of salvation, redemption, hope, and the keys to eternal life? Instead, Matthew starts his book of the same name with a genealogy. Why in the world would he do that? Because this story is not a fairy tale; this story is true. And he wants you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is true. The greatest story ever told starts like a phone book, a long list unpronounceable names. But this is important: Those names tell us that Jesus is real and that He can be traced. This is Jesus’ ancestry.com. What makes this list amazing is that some names in this long list belong to people who had sketchy pasts. Not only did Jesus associate with liars, cheaters, adulterers, murderers, and prostitutes—as we’ll see throughout the Gospels—but Jesus had them in his lineage. And Matthew didn’t even attempt to cover it up! Why does that matter to you and me? Because it shows from the outset that Jesus wants to associate with all of us. No matter what we’ve done or have become, we aren’t beyond His love or reach. I know this is true. Throughout my years of ministry, I have seen hardened prostitutes changed. Too often prostitutes feel irredeemable because their past holds so tightly to them. And yet, no one shows a way out of a past like Rahab, the prostitute who shows up in Jesus’ lineage. Her story is epic, and we see her name in that long list of names in Matthew: “Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse” (Matthew 1:5, AMP). This is the Rahab from the Old Testament book of Joshua whose act of saving Hebrew spies got her inducted in Hebrews’ hall of faith (see Hebrews 11:31). She hid them, and when they returned Joshua and the Hebrews conquered Jericho when the walls came crashing down, the only family they saved was Rahab’s. Jesus is associated with a prostitute. Would you expect anything less? Not only was she saved, but she married a Jewish man. Let’s reread Matthew 1:5: “Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse.” Salmon and Rahab had Boaz, who married Ruth—of the Old Testament book of Ruth. Boaz and Ruth had a son named Obed who had a son named Jesse. And Jesse had a son named David. Not just any David. “Jesse was the father of David the king” (Matthew 1:6 , AMP). Guess who was the great-great grandmother of King David? Rahab, the prostitute, the harlot. A quick thought for today: Almost every time Rahab’s name is mentioned, in both the Old and New Testaments, it says, “Rahab the harlot.” How would you like that, if every time someone said your name, they included with it the worst season of your life? Can you imagine that the worst season of your life is your label and tag line connected to your name? What if it looked like this? (I’ll use my name so I don’t indict anyone!): Tim the thief. Tim the embezzler. Tim the adulterer. Tim the baby aborter. Tim the wife beater. Tim the divorcee. Tim the porn addicted. Tim the alcoholic. Tim the road rager. Tim the unemployed. Think about what label would be after your name. For Rahab, “harlot” connects the past to her. If time heals all wounds, then we wouldn’t need God. Time is not that strong, but God is. There is only one place in the entire Bible where “harlot” or “prostitute” is removed from Rahab’s name: It’s when her name is connected to Jesus in Matthew 1. The only wa

Day 260 Today's Reading: Revelation 22 Growing up in my house, if you heard Mom or Day say, “Don’t make me say it again,” you knew that was a clear warning—repetition was a warning. A warning that meant I wasn’t listening to what they said the first time. It could be anything from “Clean your room” to how I said something to my sibling, not heeding the first warning shot would always call for the finale, “Don’t make me say it again.”  Today’s chapter closes with repetition. We’ve finally made it to number 260, the final chapter of the New Testament—Revelation 22. What a journey it has been. As the New Testament closes, the apostle John speaks the same words three times. I believe because we forget how important they are. He quotes Jesus in verses 7 and 12: “I am coming quickly.” Then he says it one final time: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus” (verse 20). Repetition is always a warning for those who do not take it seriously. Repetition also means we weren’t listening the first time, that we did not think it important enough to pause and ponder. Thus John is shooting us one last warning shot before the New Testament closes.  One of the ways the early-church Christians greeted and said goodbye to one another was to say, “Maranatha.” That Aramaic word means “The Lord is coming” or “Come Lord Jesus.” What a great challenge for us today to find a way to keep the quick coming of Jesus ever before us. A gardener for a large estate in northern Italy gave a tour to a visitor. He showed him through the castle and the beautiful, well-groomed grounds. The visitor commended him for the beautiful way he kept up the gardens. He asked, “When was the last time the owner was here?” “About ten years ago,” the gardener said. “Then why do you keep the gardens in such an immaculate, lovely manner?” “Because I’m expecting him to return,” the gardener said. “Oh, is he coming next week?”  “I don’t know when he is coming,” the gardener replied, “but I am expecting him today.” In chapter 22, Jesus uses in the last chapter of Revelation the title He used in the first chapter of Revelation, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (verse 13). He is the beginning and the end. Why does He use these two words or, actually, two letters? Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. Jesus is saying that He was there at the beginning of everything and He will be there at the end of everything. And now Jesus is really stressing the Omega part here. This is the ending for human history as we know it—judgment, hell, and heaven. God only is Alpha and Omega. We are omega. That means we live forever beyond this life. In Unveiling the End Times in Our Time, Adrian Rogers said this about our omega part: When God created you with a soul, body, and mind, He made you in His image. You could no more cease to exist than God Himself could cease to exist. For all time, your soul will exist somewhere—either in heaven or hell. You have a life to live, a death to die, a judgment to face, and an eternity to endure either in heaven or in hell. And you will not miss hell and go to heaven unless you are twice born. Because He is coming quickly, we must be ready, so the omega part is ready. In Chicago many years ago, there was a nightclub called “The Gates of Hell” that was right downtown. Down the street from this nightclub was a church called Calvary Church. The story goes that a young man wanted to go to that nightclub one evening, so he asked a stranger on the street, “Can you tell me how to get to The Gates of Hell?” The stranger replied, “Go right past Ca

Day 259 Today's Reading: Revelation 21 Kimutchi will always have a place in my heart. She was a prostitute from the streets of Detroit who I led to the Lord. It was one of our initial conversations that forever has marked me. She used to call me Father Tim. She came to our church one day and said, “Father Tim, can you pray for me? I’m having a tough week.” “Sure, Kimutchi,” I told her. But as I began to pray, she quickly interrupted me. “No. You can’t pray. I have no money.” I was puzzled. “What do you mean you have no money?” She proceeded to tell me that certain pastors in town would charge her $25 a prayer and then would give her a Bible passage, which she’d use for playing the lottery numbers. It was a religious scam, much like the indulgences during the reformation, which Martin Luther railed against. I explained that what they had been doing was wrong. Then I took Kimutchi to Matthew 7:21, which says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Her eyes grew wide with amazement. “That’s how you do it?” she said. “I never knew what that meant.” When Kimutchi said that, she did not mean the meaning of the verse. She meant the actual numbers on the top of the page. She did not know that “7” meant the chapter and “21” meant the verse. Then she told me over and over, “Give me one I can look up.” Then, “Give me another one.” We took a journey through the Scriptures together until she finally asked me, “Father Tim, if I give my life to Jesus, I won’t have to be on the streets any longer? I won’t have to sell myself any longer? And when I die, I won’t have to cry every day like I do?” And that’s when I took her to today’s chapter—a chapter that came to mean everything to a prostitute. Here’s Kimutchi’s final passage that she looked up and saw the numbers 21 and 1 in Revelation: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” (Revelation 21:1-5) This is heaven. This is our reward. This is the climax of history. No more wars, no more pain, no more tears, no more funerals. No more cancer, no more taxes, no more racism, no more bills, no more rent, no more need for health insurance. Because God has made all things new. Once when the great Scottish preacher and writer, George MacDonald, was talking with his family, the conversation turned to heaven. At one point, one of his relatives said, “It seems too good to be true.” To whom MacDonald replied, “Nay, it is just so good it must be true!”  It is just so good it must be true. That is heaven. That’s the place I wanted Kimutchi to know existed. And what makes heaven amazing is that “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” God does that.  It’s said that an Eastern Orthodox monk said these profound words about heaven: “For most Christians heaven is envisaged as a kind of postscript, an appendix to a book of which life on earth constitutes the actual text. But the contrary is true. Our earthly life is merely the preface to the book. Life in heaven will be the text—a text without end.”

Day 258 Today's Reading: Revelation 20 A young man was drinking heavily and decided to go for a swim at a California beach. Fortunately, an older man was watching the young man as he entered the water and saw that when he dove in, he did not come back up for air. The older man ran toward the struggling young man, dove into the water, and saved his life. A few years later, that same young man was standing in court facing a sentence on drug charges. Suddenly, the young man realized the judge was the very same man who’d saved his life when he was drowning years earlier. He looked at the judge and said, “Sir, don’t you recognize me? You saved my life a few years ago. Don’t you remember?” The judge nodded and then looked at the young man. “Young man,” he said. “Then I was your savior, but now I am your judge.” While we are alive, Christ is available to all who will trust Him now as their Savior. But if we reject Him in this life, we will stand before the Lord and know Him only as our Judge. Savior or Judge—that decision is ours. What will we do with Jesus while we are alive? If we do not choose Jesus as Savior, Revelation 20 speaks about the setting and the court we will be in called the great white throne judgment—in this final scene in human history where all will be judged. This is what John the apostle saw: I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15) The way we live here will have eternal, unchangeable, and profound consequences. Who we are today—and who we are becoming today—is preparing us for who we will be for all eternity. And only in this life can we impact our eternity. There are two judgments in heaven: the great white throne and the judgment seat of Christ. The latter is for the saints of God who receive a reward for their Christian life. The great white throne judgment is when it’s all said and done. It’s over for a person if they appear at this heavenly hearing. A misconception is that while we are at the throne of God, that will determine whether we go to heaven or hell. Whether we go to heaven or hell is not determined in heaven, it is determined in this life right now. There is no opportunity to reroute our travel plans after we have died. One second after we die, our eternal destination is unalterably fixed. If Christ has not bore our punishment in this life, we must bear our own in the next. As Matthew Henry tells us, “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our last day.” Your attendance is mandatory at one of two judgments: the judgment seat of Christ or the great white throne judgment. This is an appointment humanity will keep. Which one you will be at will be determined by whether you are born again or not. If you are not born again, you will be at this Revelation 20 great white throne judgment.  Here are the characteristics of this Revelation 20 judgment:  We will be judged fairly: no jury bias, no venue change because none is needed. We will be judged thoroughly: no loopholes and nothing missed on the evidence. We will be judged impartiall

Day 257 Today's Reading: Revelation 19 For a number of chapters, we have been through some dark moments, but now in today’s chapter, the hope bursts on the scene with loud shouting! It is God making all things right, and heaven explodes in praise over it: After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; because His judgments are true and righteous; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and He has avenged the blood of His bondservants on her.” And a second time, they said, “Hallelujah! Her smoke rises up forever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” And a voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you His bondservants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.” Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.” (Revelation 19:1-6) Hallelujah! That’s a great word to use when great things happen. Heaven shouted it! We see it here four times. A great multitude in heaven shouted it twice: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God.” Then the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures said, “Hallelujah.” Then the bondservants said hallelujah so loudly that it sounded like Niagara Falls or thunder in the heavens. What a great word. But what does hallelujah mean? The word is an interjection, a part of grammar that is an interruption to a sentence. It is an emotional and, many times, a good interruption. It’s a word that just pops out. It bursts out of the mouths because of joyful hearts. That happens in many of the psalms of the Old Testament. It’s a Hebrew expression that means, “Praise Yahweh [the Lord].” We would translate the phrase as praise the Lord! It’s a victorious shout. In the New Testament, hallelujah only occurs in Revelation 19 in the triumphant song of praise as heaven sings about God finally making things right and getting His banquet ready to celebrate. In this chapter, all of humanity has been waiting for this day of judgment. God is avenging the wrongs done to His people.  It’s a great word to use when something great happens. I think hallelujah does two things: it gives God the credit, and it reminds me that He is good to me. We will get many hallelujah days now and will not have to wait until Revelation 19 to join heaven’s chorus. It’s important that God gets the credit for them. I love the simplicity of the word and the magnitude of it. It’s an exercise that we should start using immediately. When you have a good physical, and all the numbers are healthy, throw out a hallelujah. When your child has been in a car accident, and the only thing busted up is a car, but everyone is safe, throw out a hallelujah. When you are reading the Bible and come across a verse that is exactly what you needed for that day, throw out a hallelujah. When for some reason, there is no rush-hour traffic coming home from work, throw out a hallelujah. When the rent is paid . . . When there is food on the table . . . When the report cards are good . . . When there is gas in the car . . . When the sun is shining . . . When you wake up in the morning . . . throw out a hallelujah! It’s saying, “God, You get the credit. God, You are good to me.” There was a church that would not give God praise for anything. Every service, they just sat there. No hallelujahs came from this congre

Day 256 Today's Reading: Revelation 18 When Michael Bloomberg was still mayor of New York City, he announced he was stepping up his efforts beyond his role as mayor to battle a number of social issues, including fights against smoking and obesity, and for gun control. He detailed his plans in an interview in which he predicted his crusades against those issues would serve him well in the afterlife.  Then billionaire Bloomberg said, “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”  That is scary talk, Michael Bloomberg. That is Babylon talk. What is Babylon talk? It’s the prophecy in today’s chapter of the fall of Babylon. But I don’t think Babylon is Babylon at all.  The Revelation 18 Babylon has been the topic of so much eschatological speculation and guessing about who that actually is. I think that is dangerous and usually ends with the wrong assumptions. Scholars have speculated that it could be Rome or the United States. I don’t see either. When people become sure of what the Bible calls mysteries, my antennae go up. Why? I think Babylon is bigger than a localized and specific name of a city or country. It is a spirit of security that comes from wealth and influence and seeing no need of God for our forgiveness or help in getting to heaven. Fallen Babylon is the fall of humanism and every false foundation it is built upon—from science to affluence and influence, riches, power, and personality. Without God, Babylon will fall and always fail. Here is what John saw of what was considered Babylon the great: After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.” I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. (Revelation 18:1-5) Babylon was a specific Old Testament place. At one point at the height of her power, Daniel chapter 5 says the king of Babylon saw the finger of a man’s hand write on the wall of his palace a message of judgment that needed someone to interpret. It was during a feast that the image crashed their Babylonian party. It was so frightening that the Bible says it affected King Belshazzar physically: “The king’s face grew pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together” (Daniel 5:6). Daniel is called to interpret the writing and says basically, “Babylon, your days are numbered and this kingdom is coming to an end.” And the end for them happened that night with the invasion of the Medes and Persians.  The party was over in one night. And now, in Revelation 18, the party is over again. But I don’t think it’s the same city again. I think it has to do with anyone, anything, any country, system, or government that feels no need of heavenly help. The scary part is that Revelation 18 almost sounds like Daniel’s interpretation from more than 2,500 years earlier. The Revelation Babylon party has a timed ending too. Twice in the chapter, it says, “for in one hour your judgment will come” (verses 10 and 17). Any system that tries to last without God

Day 255 Today's Reading: Revelation 17 A few times in high school, I had to fill in on the track and field team because some players were lost due to injuries and the track coach pulled athletes from other school sports. I remember being asked to run a relay. I found it intriguing how these runners crossed the finish line in a close race. They leaned forward, sticking out their heads across their chests because in that sport, milliseconds matter. And if the head crosses, the other parts of the body win too.  The Bible says in Colossians 1:18 that Jesus is the head of the body, which is His church. And as God’s children, we are the body of Christ. He’s the head, and we are the body—that’s the New Testament image. And as a runner wins the race with his head first, so it is true with us spiritually. If the head crosses, the rest of the body wins. The book of Revelation reminds us that the head of the body is crossing the finish line. And because He wins, you and I win! Revelation 17 shows evil unleashed on the planet through the great harlot, Babylon, and the beast. This unholy trinity seems to launch on all cylinders with one target in mind: the saints of God. In fact, their hatred for the saints is so intense that John describes it as “being drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus” (verse 6). Then we read about the head. And wherever the head is, the body goes with it: “These [the unholy trinity of the harlot, the beast, and Babylon] will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). I grew up in the church. We used terms and terminologies so often and frequently that I never knew context or reasoning, which has the capability of watering down the power of phrases. One of those phrases is King of kings and Lord of lords. We would say this about Jesus all the time. But to see it in the Revelation 17 context reminds me, this church boy, how powerful this phrase really is. What makes King of kings and Lord of lords powerful is the word that comes before it, because. That word because is a subordinating conjunction, which means it connects two parts of a sentence in which one (the subordinate) explains the other. Part one of verse 14 says that these will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them. How? The answer is in the subordinating conjunction, because. Because He is the Lord of lords and King of kings. That phrase, which I heard in songs and sermons, is connected to the greatest victory in all human history—the Lamb defeats hell forever. Because no king and no lord is higher than Him. But that’s just part one of the subordinating conjunction. Without bogging us down with grammar, we get a conjunction within the subordinating conjunction. We read, “Because He is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and [because] those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.” The good news for us is that because He wins, you and I win. Because the head crosses the finish line, the body gets the reward also. Because He is the King, you and I are royalty. Because He is the Lord, you and I are protected and provided for. I was reading the story of someone that knew the power of the words King of kings and the Lord of lords instinctively. When Queen Victoria had just ascended her throne in the mid-1800s, as was the custom of royalty, she went to hear George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, rendered by the London Royal Symphony. She had been instructed as to her conduct by those who knew the royal protocol and was told that she must not rise when the

Day 254 Today's Reading: Revelation 16 One of the scariest movies I have ever seen was not in a theater but in a church. It was called A Thief in the Night, and it was circulating in the 1970s about the end times. I knew I wanted to be ready for the rapture, the second coming of Jesus. I remember leaving that church service as an elementary student knowing full well in my heart that I needed to be ready for that day. I went on to read Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth. At that time, they had it in a comic book form, and it was the clincher for me that I was going to be ready for Jesus to come back as a thief in the night. If things could get any worse for earth and humanity, Revelation 16 tells us it does in the great tribulation. As if seven trumpets of disaster were not enough for the planet, God unleashes seven bowls of wrath into the earth, from bodily affliction to polluting rivers and water. What’s interesting is that in the midst of these wrathful bowls of God’s judgment, one theme keeps being shouted by the angels inflicting the punishment: “Righteous art Thou O Holy One.” Their words remind us that God is not doing anything we don’t deserve—this is a day of wrath and judgment after millennia of mercy and patience. These bowls are terrifying, as is men’s response to the outpouring of God’s wrath. Almost as many times as it says “God is righteous” after one of the bowls is poured out, it says as many times, “They did not repent so as to give Him glory.” How corrupt is man by this time in his history? The chapter ends with a name many of us are all familiar with. As if things can’t get any worse, we are introduced to Armageddon, the place of the final battle on the planet. All that to say that in the midst of these horrific verses, a parenthetical statement shows up and stands alone in these passages because the verse speaks to the now and not to the future: “(‘Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.’)” (Revelation 16:15). Verse 15 is a parenthetical life preserver for humanity now, right now before this chapter comes upon the planet with the wrath of God. When I say parenthetical, it’s just a large word for parentheses, an insert of another thought, a little path from the original thought. But this is not a little diversion. This is deliverance from the wrath of God. It is as if John breaks from the vision and, in terror of what will happen, says to humanity, This doesn’t have to happen to you. Stay awake and ready for the rapture. The parentheses show us John being overwhelmed and wanting to help us all. The parentheses bring us to the rapture, the second coming of Jesus. The apostle John says that Jesus will come like a thief in the night, but this is not only John’s description of the second coming of Jesus. Jesus says in Matthew 24 that this is the way it happens. In 1 Thessalonians 5:2, Paul uses the thief-in-the-night image. And in 2 Peter 3:10, Peter also says He will come like a thief. The thief-in-the-night day is the rapture. The rapture is Jesus coming physically a second time to the earth, not to redeem it but to start judging it. The rapture has two important days attached to it: the wedding day and the judgment day. The wedding day is the celebration of the “born again” dead and living all going to heaven. It’s the final call, our reward of heaven. And the Bible calls it a wedding-day celebration. The second day is judgment day, and it is God making all wrongs right. No one gets away with anything because of this day. Every person will be judged for what they have done. Hitler and Saddam Hussein will be there. Stalin and Castro. People from your city and my city and every pl

Day 253 Today's Reading: Revelation 15 There is beauty in diversity and variety. Think about how diverse and beautiful America’s landscape is. Parts of our country have mountains, deserts, forests, plains, and cities with skyscrapers. The diversity of landscape brings a balance that delights the eye. The same is true for God. The smallest chapter of Revelation has a very large concept in it. It’s a word Christians rarely use anymore concerning God. When we get stuck on a single part of the landscape of His character, we make God small, which allows unhealthy theology to arise. For instance, we know that God is love. That’s what made God send His Son for our rescue: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” I am grateful for God’s grace and His mercy. His goodness is overwhelming at times. But there’s another aspect of God’s character that makes us uncomfortable, so we don’t talk about it: the wrath of God. Today’s chapter talks about it, so it’s important for us to pay attention to it: “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished” (Revelation 15:1). The seven angels who have the seven trumpets have the most destructive judgment the planet has ever seen. John describes those as seven plagues because of their devastation. But the word that sums up these seven plagues from these seven angels and seven trumpets is the wrath of God. As I mentioned in a previous day, my Italian father had a statement that dealt with his wrath when I was growing up. When we were acting up at the dinner table and getting close to the edge of where judgment needed to come, my father would say, “The bag is getting full.” That is how wrath works. It contains patience, warning, and then judgment. God has been sending warnings from the beginning of time and showing patience to the human race. Now Revelation shows when the bag has gotten full. Wrath does not come without thousands of years of warning, but it comes with people disregarding the warning and His patience. What is the wrath of God? When we think of wrath, we think of anger, explosive anger. But this is not an accurate description of God’s wrath. Revelation doesn’t portray God losing it on the planet and going off on humanity. We see this kind of anger as irrational, the loss of self-control. Nothing could be further from the truth of this very important part of God. The best way to describe the wrath of God is by connecting it to God’s hatred for sin. Revelation shows when God’s patience reaches a limit, and His calculated judgment comes with wrath against a planet that has rejected Him. In Free of Charge, Creation theologian Miroslav Volf spoke about how early in life, he disdained the idea of God’s wrath and even rejected God for it. But part of his conversion to faith was in understanding how important God’s wrath is and how it’s connected to God’s love. Listen to Volf describe it: Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love. The wrath of God is necessary if God is love because God’s wrath is His righteous retribution against sin, the enemy of God. Because God is love and God is good, He can never not address evil and sin. How can a police officer be a good cop if he sees crimes committed and does nothing about it? Being a good police officer has a positive side to the law-abiding community but a negative side to the law-breaking criminal. The same is true for God. He is so good that when His wrath is release

Day 252 Today's Reading: Revelation 14 The Beatitudes are a unique part of Jesus’ teachings from the Sermon on the Mount that all start the same way: “Blessed are . . .” Jesus said, “Blessed are . . .” nine different times in Matthew 5. The word beatitude actually means supremely blessed. It is a state of utmost bliss and happiness.  Here are some of Jesus’ beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (verse 3). “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (verse 4). “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (verse 5). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (verse 8). “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (verse 9). But the strangest beatitude has to be in Revelation 14. It starts just like the Matthew 5 Beatitudes, but we would never think the word blessed belongs with the following words. It’s radical, counterintuitive, and sobering: ‘I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”’ (Revelation 14:13) Blessed are the dead. Sounds morbid. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. The Holy Spirit responds to this beatitude and says, “Yes, so that they may rest from their labors.” We are part of a culture that is trying to stay alive the longest they can. Our culture says, “Blessed are the living,” yet God says here in Revelation 14, “Blessed are the dead.” The world judges by the wrong standards; they don’t have eternity in their minds and hearts. They are trying to stay alive and extend their life longer when they need it extended forever. Blessed are the dead . . . with a very important attachment to it: “who die in the Lord.” So that means that not all who die are blessed, happy beyond bliss. Think of all the death that happens every day. And blessedness is for those who die in the Lord. There are more than 6 billion people on earth. On average, 60 million of them will die this year. That is 175,000 people dying every day, 8,000 people dying every hour, 200 people dying every minute, eight people dying every second. It is unavoidable and undeniable, and one day, you will become one of these statistics. But not all will be blessed. Of the 175,000 who are pouring into eternity every day, there is a company that believes in Jesus and is on the blessed list.  As Robert Murray McCheyne wrote: ‘There is no blessing on the Christless dead; they rush into an undone eternity, unpardoned, unholy. You may put their body in a splendid coffin; you print their name in silver on the lid; you may bring the well-attired company of mourners to the funeral in suits of solemn black; you may lay the coffin slowly in the grave; you may lay the greenest sod above it; you may train the sweetest flowers to grow over it; you may cut a white stone, and grave a gentle epitaph to their memory; still it is but the funeral of a damned soul. You cannot write blessed where God hath written “cursed.”’ Mark 16:16 says, “Whoever believes and is baptized is saved; whoever refuses to believe is damned.” You cannot write “blessed” where God has written “damned.” No three words could be more important to the living than in the Lord. That must be our goal, that when we die, we are “in the Lord.” That’s not the strangest beatitude but the ultimate beatitude. We are learning something about heaven and death with this beatitude. If the Holy Spirit agr

Day 251 Today's Reading: Revelation 13 If you are a baseball fan, the number 42 is an important number. It belonged to Jackie Robinson, the first African American to cross the racial lines and play major league baseball in 1947. That number has been retired from all MLB teams. This means that no future MLB player can ever wear Jackie’s number. It commemorates the courage and bravery of what Jackie Robinson did for the game of baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The number was retired in a ceremony, which took place April 15, 1997, at Shea Stadium to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Robinson’s first game with the Dodgers. That number was important not just for baseball but for the racial divide in our country. It is also important and significant today and more so in the future for a different reason. In today’s chapter, we look at something else important and significant for today and the future, where the number forty-two is seismic for the planet. When we see the prefix anti, we immediately think it means “against” or “opposite.” Consider some of these words with the anti prefix attached to them:  Anticlimax—the ending of something is disappointing. You expected more. Antisocial—it’s the opposite of being outgoing and inviting. Anti-inflammatory—we older folks know about this. It’s that which fights against swelling in the human body. But how about this disturbing one—antichrist? Revelation 13 introduces a character yet to be named in human history who is eviler than any one person who has ever walked the planet—the antichrist. Many believe that the beast from the beginning of this chapter refers to the antichrist. Let’s read this chilling account of what is coming to the earth: “I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; and they worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?” There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies; and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. It was given to him to make war with the saints.” (Revelation 13:1-7) Revelation 13 closes with the antichrist’s mark of the beast, the number 666. Whenever you hear people talk about eschatology, the study of the end times, many like to speculate about this number and its meaning. I grew up during a time when there was wild speculation about who the antichrist might be. Some even went as far as throwing out some names using the 666 as the key to unlocking their identity. One name I heard growing up was Ronald Reagan. Why? His full name is Ronald Wilson Reagan. Every part of his name has six letters, thus ending up with 666. Seriously? Nobody said it better about Revelation speculations than R. T. Williams: “Young men stay away from the subject of prophecy. Let the old men do that. They won’t be around to see their mistakes.” Brilliant. The things the apostle John detailed are scary and sobering. Let me give you three points of this time in the future. First, it is disturbing to see the similariti

Day 250 Today's Reading: Revelation 12 Some years ago, I read an interesting book called Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War by Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, in which the authors noticed that throughout history, defeat rises out of three basic features: the failure to learn, the failure to anticipate, the failure to adapt to changing conditions. We are in a different war called spiritual warfare. And in today’s chapter, we find one of the most descriptive places in all Scripture of this battle. We also see in these verses the battle lessons that Cohen and Gooch speak about—that we can learn about this battle, we can anticipate the enemy’s movements, and we can have new weapons to adapt to his attacks. Here is the battle we are in: “There was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.’” (Revelation 12:7-12) We find so much in these verses about hell, heaven, and the believers. There is a battle going on against the soul of every Christian. This is the origin, the reason, the cast, and the results of spiritual warfare. We see all the descriptive words of the devil. He is called the dragon, the great dragon, the serpent of old, the devil, the accuser of the brethren, and Satan. We learn that he and his angels were thrown out of heaven. They are fighting a war they can’t win, and they know the time is short, but that doesn’t stop their devilish onslaught. They fight with great wrath and anger. And their target is God’s church. The last verse of the chapter says, “The dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (verse 17). We are the offspring. And if we are the target, we need a weapon. But we don’t get just a weapon. We get three weapons: “They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death” (verse 11). Here are God’s three devil-winning strategies to overcome Satan: First, the blood of the Lamb. This is a judicial weapon. Judicial means we have legal rights. The blood of Jesus is our assurance that our sins are forgiven. In the long list of his names, the devil is called “the accuser of the brethren.” He accuses us of our sins to try and get us to doubt that we are God’s children. When we have been born again, the blood of Jesus goes over the doorposts of our hearts, just as the children of Israel needed to put it on their actual doorposts, so the angel of death would pass by. We are covered by the blood, Satan has to pass by, but not without throwing some fiery darts. The second weapon is the word of our testimony. This is an evidential weapon. We have history from saints in the past that God delivers. When we read and hear about God’s deliverance in His children’s liv

Day 249 Today's Reading: Revelation 11 Whenever I read Revelation 11, my mind goes back to the three temptations Jesus experienced in the wilderness that started His public ministry—especially to the third temptation. Today’s chapter reminds us that Satan will tempt us with the right outcome but with bad shortcuts getting there. Always remember the journeys God puts us on toward a desired end have our spiritual growth in mind. One of those shortcuts that Satan has gotten so many to bow to has been immorality and fornication. Fornication is having sex outside of the covenant of marriage. The lie of immorality has been, If I love you, then I should sleep with you. It’s sabotaging the growth journey. Commitment and covenant are the prerequisites for intimacy, not love. Love leads us to commitment and covenant, not to the bedroom. In the waiting period, we learn patience, we learn how to develop other important areas, we learn respect, and we learn what real love is. Immorality and fornication are shortcuts that will always hurt the future of a relationship because they are sins. Jesus was tempted to take a shortcut when His ministry was launched with forty days of fasting and Satanic temptation. In order to see the magnitude of the Revelation 11 verse, we have to see the three temptations of Jesus and key in on the third one. In order for the temptation to be a temptation, it has to attract us. It has to have something that we want. What was in it that attracted Jesus? There were three satanic requests made to Jesus: make bread from stones, throw Himself off the pinnacle, bow before Satan. Satan requested those things because he was asking Jesus for proof:&nbsp;prove You are God’s Son, prove the Bible is true, prove You don’t want it now. In the first temptation, Satan is saying, the way to fix your own doubts/insecurity is by what you do instead of trusting what God says. God already told Jesus that Jesus is His beloved Son, so Satan said, “If You are the Son, turn these stones to bread.” In the second temptation, Satan quotes the Bible and wants Jesus to live out a misinterpretation of Scripture. He quotes Psalm 91 but not completely, telling Jesus to jump off the temple, and the angels will rescue Him. But Psalm 91 isn’t meant for random temple jumping. This is like what churches are doing by snake-handling to prove Mark 16:18: “They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly&nbsp;poison, it will not hurt them.” It’s dangerous, and people have died. Don’t jump without a full context. Finally, in the third temptation telling Jesus that He can have it all sooner than He thinks if He only takes a shortcut: “The devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me’” (Matthew 4:8-9). That’s what Satan told Jesus. That’s what Satan tells Jesus’ children: “Bow down now, and you can get what you want sooner.” But what he doesn’t tell us is by taking the shortcut, we lose the process and the maturity that comes in pain and affliction, and patience. These are some shortcuts: cheating on a test to cheating on a marriage, lying to get money, lying on an application, not tithing, exaggerating, plagiarizing, and the list goes on. The satanic proposal is that we should have it all&nbsp;now, and the only thing we have to do to get it is to bow. To Jesus, he was saying that He could bypass suffering and the cross and the three years of ministry by bowing to his agenda and clock, not God’s clock. When you get it sooner than God’s clock, you also get exhaustion, disappointment, strained or tainted character, and no joy. The good news is that Jesus did not bow! Jesus did not take the shortcut!</

Day 248 Today's Reading: Revelation 10 David Wilkerson was a spiritual father to me. His investment in my life was so significant that I am in ministry today because of him. He is the founder of Teen Challenge, the author of&nbsp;The Cross and the Switchblade, and the founding pastor of Times Square Church, and he made an imprint on my life, unlike anybody in my early years. From the investment of wisdom, finances, time, and opportunity, one thing I have today, which he gave me when he ordained me, was a New American Standard Bible that he signed in the front. He also included a verse from Revelation 10. Let’s look at our passage for today, which includes the verse David Wilkerson wrote in my Bible: “The voice which I heard from heaven,&nbsp;I heard&nbsp;again speaking with me, and saying, “Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land.” So I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book. And he said to me, “Take it and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.” (Revelation 10:8-10) David Wilkerson was challenging me to be a man of the book. The book means the Bible. He was wanting me to understand that when we devour the Bible by reading it and studying it, there will be places in it that will be sweet and some places that will be bitter. When John was being challenged to eat the book, it was not literally but figuratively. Eating meant study, read, and apply, not actually eating. I read this crazy story of someone who missed the point of Revelation 10. In the early 1900s, the Ethiopian emperor Menelik II grew ill. Believing the Bible could cure him, he ate pages of the Bible. He died in 1913 after eating the entire book of 2 Kings. The book of 2 Kings is good but not good enough to eat all twenty-five chapters. The Bible becomes bitter when truth troubles me when it contradicts me. Then it’s swallowing a bitter pill but a healthy one. When it’s bitter, I am tempted to theologize the concepts away or to pass over it, but that’s hard to do when you are eating the book. E. Paul Hovey so insightfully said: “Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself but because it contradicts them.” Those are the bitter sections. But to be honest, there are a lot of sweet spots in the Word. And when you hit a sweet spot, there is nothing like it. A sweet spot is getting something from the Bible that you needed that day, that moment, for encouragement and hope. I can say without a doubt, the honey-sweet verses make the bitter verses palatable, because when I hit a bitter verse, one that is challenging my behavior and attitude, a verse that refuses to move for me, I remember all the sweet ones and realize I can’t always have dessert but need vegetables too. And that bitter verse isn’t going to move. It’s asking me to move. An officer in the navy had always dreamed of commanding a battleship. He was finally given commission of the newest ship in the fleet. One stormy night, as the ship plowed through the rough water, the captain was on the bridge and spotted a strange light rapidly closing in on his own vessel. This was before radio, so he ordered the signalman to flash the message to the unidentified craft, “Alter your course ten degrees to the south.” Only a moment passed before the reply came: “Alter your course ten degrees to the north.” Determined that his ship would take a backseat to no other, the captain snapped out the order: “Alter course ten degrees—I am the Captain!” The response came back, “Alter your course ten degrees—I am Seaman Third Class Jones.” Now infuriated, the captain grabbed the signal light with his ow

Day 247 Today's Reading: Revelation 9 Not only was Thomas Jefferson our third president, in his retirement, he also founded the University of Virginia. Believing that students would take their studies seriously, he encouraged a more lax code of discipline. Unfortunately, some students took advantage and misbehaved, which turned into a riot. Professors who tried to restore order were attacked. The following day the university’s board, of which Jefferson was a member, held a meeting with the defiant students. Jefferson began by saying, “This is one of the most painful events of my life,” but couldn’t continue because he was overcome by emotion and burst into tears. Another board member asked the rioters to come forward and give their names. Nearly everyone did. Later, one of them confessed, “It was not Mr. Jefferson’s words, but it was his tears that broke us.” Just as the students were moved by Jefferson’s brokenness, so is God by ours. When we are truly broken and sorry for our sins, this leads to repentance. William Taylor describes true repentance like this: “True repentance . . . hates the sin, and not simply the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered God’s love.” The last few verses of today’s chapter contain a response from mankind that still has me shaking my head, even though I have read this many times before. It leaves me dumbfounded. Let me explain with the background. When the seventh seal was broken in Revelation 8, there came out of that seal seven angels with seven trumpets with the most horrific judgment coming on the earth. Each trumpet was relegated for a disaster to judge mankind. Revelation 9 has the fifth and the sixth trumpet. The fifth plague on the earth came directly from the bottomless pit of hell. It was five months of absolute terror on the planet. It would be so bad that men would want to die, but John says these sobering words, “They will long to die but death flees from them.” The sixth trumpet is an angel of death who kills a third of mankind. These trumpets are horrifying. Why would this be important to describe and detail in this chapter? It’s what happens at the end that is most mindboggling. Let’s read what happens to two-thirds of the planet’s population who are still alive after experiencing the judgments of trumpets six and seven: “The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.” (Revelation 9:20-21, NIV) Twice it says that mankind still did not repent. The brazenness and the hardness of humans that the worst tragedy can hit the planet and yet they will still refuse to turn to God. Can love for sin be that strong that people will not even repent? Puritan writer Thomas Watson reminds us of the mistake of repentance: “Many think they repent, when it is not the offense, but the penalty troubles them.” Watson wants us to know that repentance has to do with wanting to stop sinning, but many just want the penalty and result of their sin to stop. What will it take to get someone to repent? Based on Revelation 9, I know it’s not catastrophe because it doesn’t get more catastrophic than these trumpets. Look what happened to people after September 11, 2001. The churches were filled, but it didn’t last. Tragedy is not what makes people repent of their sins. Repentance is a word not used much, if ever anymore, today in churches. If people would hear the word repentance, they might see it as puritanical or legalistic, when it is a surrendered will to God that hates sin so much that they want nothing to do with it, that there is a 180-degree turn from any known sin. No

Day 246 Today's Reading: Revelation 8 You know a relationship is in trouble when silence occurs between the two parties. Nothing is worse than a silent home between husband and wife. I’m not condoning it, but yelling at each other is better than silence. At least people are voicing their opinions. But when silence occurs, it means&nbsp;I’m done talking. It’s over. Silence means the end is near. After the Roman soldiers took Jesus into custody for His crucifixion, both Pilate and Herod questioned Jesus. We have his responses to Pilate. But when Jesus appeared before Herod, something eerie occurred. Here is how Luke recorded the scene: “Herod was very glad when he saw Jesus; for he had wanted to see Him for a long time, because he had been hearing about Him and was hoping to see some sign performed by Him. And he questioned Him at some length; but He answered him nothing.” (Luke 23:8-9) But He answered him nothing.&nbsp; Herod was an apostate. If Herod would not listen to John the Baptist’s warnings and had him beheaded, he was not going to listen to Jesus. In fact, we are told that all Herod wanted was a sign performed, a trick to see. Herod had wanted to see Jesus for a very long time, and when he finally did, he received only silence! The only one talking in the room was Herod. He had the Son of God in his presence, the One whose very word created the ground he was walking on, and he was the only one talking. Silence from the Son of God. And now, in Revelation 8, we see that all of heaven has gone silent for thirty minutes. Do we understand the ramifications of this silence? For seven chapters, heaven has been bursting with praise, and now everything comes to a screeching halt. All of the angels, elders, and four living creatures stop their worship. The chapter prior shows that they are declaring that robes have been washed white in the blood of the Lamb. They are announcing in the last verse of chapter 7 that God shall wipe every tear from their eyes. And now in chapter 8, nothing: “When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth.” (Revelation 8:1-5) When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, it caused silence. Why? That seal contains seven angels with seven trumpets, which are seven judgments about to be released on the earth. I think the silence is shock and awe by heaven’s host. What they are about to see has never been witnessed before. Heaven has seen nothing but mercy and grace shown to the planet and all of humanity. But now, mercy and grace have run their course, and it’s time for God to hold court on the world and its wickedness. It is earth’s final judgment. It is the beginning of the end. Heaven has never seen anything like this before. The mouths that had nothing but praise in them, now can say nothing at all at the breaking of the seventh seal. What amazed me about this chapter is what seems to break the thirty-minute silence in heaven. It isn’t an angel, an elder, or one of the four living creatures. It seems to be prayer—the prayers of the saints. There is no more prayer in heaven, only praise. So these prayers are coming from believers on the earth before the first trumpet sounds. The power of these judgment trumpets are so awful, it silences heaven. But prayer is so powerful that it can end the si

Day 245 Today's Reading: Revelation 7 I think we have mixed up our priorities. Author Gordon Dahl agrees. Consider his observation: “Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play, and to play at their worship. As a result, their meanings and values are distorted.” Worship is not an optional spiritual practice for Christians. It is a response to how we see God. A low view of God shows up in a view that worship is an inconvenience. A high view of God shows up as an automatic response to His worthiness. The word&nbsp;worship&nbsp;literally means&nbsp;worth-ship. It’s to see the true value of something or someone. It recognizes their worth. In today’s chapter, we see something amazing happen with worship. The apostle John has multiple visions of worship happening in the heavens, but the one in chapter 7 seems to be the climax. Before we look at that one, I need to take us on a worship journey in Revelation starting in chapter 1, so we can see how worship progresses. Starting in Revelation 1:6, we see two notes of praise: “He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 1:6). The two notes:&nbsp;glory&nbsp;and&nbsp;dominion. Then in chapter 4, we see three notes of praise: “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created” (4:11). The three notes:&nbsp;glory,&nbsp;honor, and&nbsp;power. In chapter 5, we see four notes of praise: “Every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, ‘To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb,&nbsp;be&nbsp;blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever’” (5:13). The four notes:&nbsp;Blessing, honor, glory, and&nbsp;dominion. Now we come to chapter 7, where the worship seems to reach a crescendo with seven notes of praise: “All the angels were standing around the throne and&nbsp;around&nbsp;the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might,&nbsp;be&nbsp;to our God forever and ever. Amen’” (7:11-12). The seven notes:&nbsp;blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power,&nbsp;and&nbsp;might&nbsp;be to our God. Wow! Worship reaches an apex in heaven. It seems that it kept building to this moment, and those in heaven couldn’t help themselves. Worship was&nbsp;worthship&nbsp;pouring out from them. Heaven is where nothing but truth exists, maximum truth. The truth of who God is is unveiled. And since that happens, worship is the proper response. Everything is clearly seen in heaven. The price of salvation. The value of the Son of God coming to earth. What mercy and grace really is. All of these are unveilings, just to name a few. When we see the true God and know the true God, we must worship God. Let me put it this way: if our idea of God, if our idea of the salvation offered in Christ, is vague or remote, our idea of worship will be fuzzy. The closer we get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more we will find worship welling up within us. That’s why theology and worship belong together. If they are separated then theology is just a head-trip, and worship without truth is just an emotional experience as we enjoy singing or listening to songs about God. But heaven joins the truth of God and the emotion that He stimulates in our hearts to bring about a seven-note climax of worship. In 1744, hymn writer Charles Wesley, John Wesley’s brother,

Day 244 Today's Reading: Revelation 6 Located in Washington DC is the iconic memorial to Thomas Jefferson. And written on the northeast portico of the memorial are these sobering and haunting words our country needs to read and digest again from one of our founding fathers: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” Wow, that is sobering. God’s justice will always be turned loose against sin. The best definition of sin I have ever read is from John Piper: “[Sin] is the glory of God not honored, the holiness of God not reverenced, the greatness of God not admired, the power of God not praised, the truth of God not sought, the wisdom of God not esteemed, the beauty of God not treasured, the goodness of God not savored, the faithfulness of God not trusted, the promises of God not believed, the commandments of God not obeyed, the justice of God not respected, the wrath of God not feared, the grace of God not cherished, the presence of God not prized, the person of God not loved.” God’s justice will judge sin. The problem is that, from our standpoint, it takes too long. Whenever we see sin and injustice, we want immediate recompense. The living asks for it, and in today’s chapter, we have another group asking for it. In Revelation 6 we hear the cry of the dead, but not just the dead—those who have died for their faith in Jesus. Listen to the cry of the martyrs when the Lamb broke the fifth seal, and we hear their hallowed voices: “When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” (Revelation 6:9-10) Many believe early church father Tertullian said these famous words, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” He argued that persecution actually strengthens the church; as martyrs bravely and willingly die for their faith, onlookers convert. In Christianity Today, Morgan Lee goes on to say: “Some 1,800 years later, restrictions on religion are stronger than ever. According to the Pew Research Center, 74 percent of the world’s population live in a country where social hostilities involving religion are high, and 64 percent live where government restrictions on religion are high. Does this explain why Christianity is likewise growing worldwide?” The Revelation 6 martyr’s question is our question: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” That is the question for the living and the dead. When is God going to put things right? When is God going to judge those who rightly deserve judgment? Here is what I have learned about God and immediate judgment. First, God is patient. God is willing to wait. Second, God is willing to be misunderstood in delay. While men cry for “now,” God sees the bigger picture as more important than answering our immediate cry. And third, there will be a day when God&nbsp;will&nbsp;make everything right; it just may not be the day on your calendar. So God is patient. God can handle mischaracterization about Himself while He delays. And God will have the final word. The book of 2 Peter gives such a great perspective to the “how long?”&nbsp;question the martyrs of Revelation 6 asked. The context of the answer is that people want Jesus to return quickly. They want that final judgment day to happen to show the mockers and skeptics that God is real and that they are going to get what’s coming to them. But Peter explains God’s reason for the delay: “His’ delay’ simply reveals his loving pati

Day 243 Today's Reading: Revelation 5 When I travel overseas, the first thing I have to look for in that new country is a currency exchange counter. I need to turn US dollars into the currency of that country. My currency doesn’t work on their foreign soil. I can’t use dollars when they only accept pesos or euros. In today’s reading, we are introduced to a currency that is required to live on eternal soil and a transaction that benefits the planet. The return or rate on the currency is unlike anyone has ever seen or heard. Listen to these words that John hears being sung in heaven: “They sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood&nbsp;men&nbsp;from every tribe and tongue and people and nation’” (Revelation 5:9). Did you see the transaction? “You [Jesus] purchased for God”—the transaction “With Your blood”—the currency “Men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation”—the product purchased, all humanity The blood of Jesus was the currency that heaven accepted to purchase our redemption. The blood of Jesus is the only acceptable currency that allows me to go to heaven. If the value of an article is determined by the price paid for it, and Jesus died for you, then you can believe you are very valuable to God because God is not a foolish investor. Your worth to Him is the price of His precious Son’s life. “The temptation of our times is to look good without being good.” In other words, we try to use bogus currency that heaven, that foreign land, will not accept. We spend money and time trying to fix the outside, thinking it will fix the inside. “We suck and tuck and are still stuck and out of luck” (Brennan Manning). The inside issue is the issue, and the issue is a sin issue. The cross has revealed to good men that their goodness has not been good enough. Men have tried for ages to get by on bogus currency. Let’s see why this currency called the blood of Jesus is so important to understand. Jesus was punished for my sin because sin had to be punished. His shed blood was the result of my sin and its payment for my sin. If my sin was not transferred to Jesus, then someone else has to pay for it. Why? Because it is a crime against God, and all crimes must be paid for. You and I would not be here if we had to pay for that crime against God. Someone had to die for committing crime against God—and it was Jesus who died in our place. But with one caveat: the One who died for me rose again! Jesus’ death is the acceptable payment, the currency for all of humanity. Why is sacrifice necessary for the atonement of sin? Because Justice demands it. A crime cannot be forgiven without a payment or just an “I’m sorry.” We live in a time in which people try to pay the crime with the wrong currency and have never done the currency exchange. Let me give you three currencies that God won’t accept: Currency #1: Sincerity. Some think that because they mean well that this is enough. But we have to exchange for the blood of Christ. Currency #2: Service. Some think that God owes them something because of their basic decency. That good people go to heaven, and goodness is measured on a scale against their bad things, and if the scale tips in the good favor, then they’re in. Doing good or being good is their currency. But we have to exchange for the blood of Christ. Currency #3. Feeling sorry. Some think that if they feel bad for their sin and they cry, God knows their heart. The problem is that He does know our hearts, and the only remedy is a currency exchange, the blood of Jesus. Romans 5:10 says, “we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,” not by men’s currency of sincerity, service, or apology. We can’t leave Jesus out of the equ

Day 242 Today's Reading: Revelation 4 Pastor Gordon Lester says this about two important words: “Familiarity and intimacy are not the same. Each has a value in life, certainly in married life, but one is no substitute for the other. If one is confused for the other, we have the basis for major human and marital unrest. In marriage, familiarity is inescapable. It happens almost imperceptibly. Intimacy is usually hard to come by. It must be deliberately sought and opened up and responded to. Familiarity brings a degree of ease and comfort. Intimacy anxiously searches for deep understanding and personal appreciation.” These are not words for just the marriage relationship. These are two words for the most important relationship—our friendship with God. Familiarity and intimacy can be defined like this: familiarity refers to knowledge, having information about someone. But for intimacy to happen, it doesn’t stop at information; it needs to go further. When it comes to important things and people in our lives, if familiarity doesn’t turn to intimacy, then we face the danger of familiarity. Have you heard of this phrase,&nbsp;familiarity breeds contempt? All the information you have doesn’t move you closer to the person.&nbsp; Intimacy is not for every relationship, but it must be the threshold we cross in the important ones—especially in our relationship with God. Intimacy means closeness. It’s a proximity word and a conscious effort to close the gaps between us. What I mean by closing the gaps is that all mysteries and hidden things are exposed. Intimacy knows the secrets and the motives. It’s like the old saying, the best way to define intimacy is into-me-see. That was God’s invitation to John the revelator:&nbsp;I want you to see deeper. I want to clear up some mystery for you. I am inviting you to intimacy. Here is the invitation: “After these things I looked, and behold, a door&nbsp;standing&nbsp;open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like&nbsp;the sound&nbsp;of a trumpet speaking with me, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.” Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne.” (Revelation 4:1-2) John knew the Jesus on earth, but intimacy calls for closing the gaps:&nbsp;John, you are now going to see the Jesus you have never seen before. The Jesus in heaven. You knew the Jesus on the cross, and the Jesus resurrected, but you have never experienced or seen the Jesus on the throne. Here’s what happened to John. When he was in the Spirit, He saw the throne. The word&nbsp;throne&nbsp;is used eleven times in this short eleven-verse chapter. Eleven times! I think God was trying to show John something. John was shown an open door, but it was his prerogative whether he would go through or not. That was the choice of moving from being familiar with Jesus to being intimate with Jesus. And when the gap was closed between John on earth and Jesus in heaven, he saw a throne. Intimacy revealed Jesus on the throne. That’s what happens when we walk in the Spirit. I think the best New Testament phrase to describe intimacy with God is&nbsp;walking in the Spirit. To walk in the Spirit is to be in step with God, to walk in cadence with Him. Familiarity has moved to intimacy. To walk in the Spirit brings closeness and closes the gaps. When this happens, we see Jesus on the throne, the Jesus in charge, the Jesus who calls the shots. We see the sovereignty of Jesus. The phrase&nbsp;in the Spirit&nbsp;is used often in the New Testament. Ephesians says pray in the Spirit, Philippians says worship in the Spirit, Colossians says love in the Spirit, and Galatians says walk in the Spirit. And when John

Day 241 Today's Reading: Revelation 3 Some time ago, Cindy and I were doing marital counseling for a couple who were struggling in their marriage. I asked a question I always ask in those types of counseling appointments. It is one of reality and judgment, so I can see how clear they are in their thinking. I asked the wife first, “Is there anything you can do to help the marriage? What do you need to stop doing and what do you need to get better in?” “I can’t think of anything,” she said. She was basically saying,&nbsp;It’s him, not me. She misjudged herself really badly. Today’s chapter looks at a church that was in the same boat as this deceived wife. The church of Laodicea was miles apart between their opinion of themselves and the reality of their situation. This is what Jesus tells them: “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:14-17) Paul gave the church at Rome a warning in Romans 12:3. Listen to these words because Laodicea didn’t: “Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us” (Romans 12:3, NLT).&nbsp;The Message&nbsp;says, “Don’t misinterpret yourselves.” Now here is the Laodicean church who proudly said,&nbsp;We are rich, wealthy, and need nothing. That’s their judgment of themselves. But the only opinion that counts is how God sees us. And in verse 17, we have both reality and opinion. Listen to Jesus’ reality: “You do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” Wow, can that be any different? Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard couldn’t have said it more clearly: “It is so much easier to become a Christian when you aren’t one than to become one when you assume you already are.” Nothing is more dangerous than a deceived Christian, especially when the Spirit of truth resides in us. How does my opinion of me match what Jesus assesses me to be? Am I Laodicea far off? Do I believe I’m rich when Jesus says I’m poor? Do I believe I don’t need anything when Jesus says I am blind and naked? Here is a great prayer for us to pray every day from David in Psalm 139:23 (MSG): Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; Cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about; See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong— then guide me on the road to eternal life. I have learned that a number of factors can put me in the Laodicea category of misjudging myself: When I am not reading the Bible. James 1:23 says the Bible is a mirror. When I read it, I can see the stuff out of place.When I am not praying. Prayer is where God talks and the Spirit convicts.When I am attending church but not being pastored. I have no one speaking to the areas that need to be tweaked and examined. I have surrounded myself with cheerleaders but no truth-tellers. The last thing God says to this church is profound. And I have read it wrong for years. Listen to Jesus: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20). For decades I used to pre

Day 240 Today's Reading: Revelation 2 Famed classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma was in a rush to get from one side of Manhattan to the other for a quick appearance. So rushed that when he arrived at his destination, he paid his driver, exited the cab, and forgot to take his cello with him. He’d placed the cello in the trunk of the taxi. And the cello was priceless: handcrafted by Antonio Stradivari in 1733 in Vienna, Austria, valued at $2.5 million. Frantic, Ma began a desperate search, eventually finding the cab later that day parked in a garage in Queens—with the cello still in the trunk. Wow, talk about leaving something priceless inadvertently. In today’s chapter, though, a church is accused of something more devastating—leaving their first love. Revelation 2 and 3 are messages from Jesus to seven churches. Not every message is encouraging. In fact, they are convicting even two thousand years later. The first church God speaks to is the church of Ephesus: “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to&nbsp;be&nbsp;false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” (Revelation 2:1-4) You have left your first love. A few years ago, I left my Kindle on a plane. I’d leaned it against the wall in the exit row by my seat. I was packing up my bag as we were landing and something said to me,&nbsp;Put that in your backpack.&nbsp;I didn’t. I left a thousand books leaning against the wall of the plane. Let me be clear. I didn’t lose it. I knew exactly where it was—seat 15C, flight #629 out of Atlanta. Lost has no idea where it is. Lost means it fell out of a pocket, a car, or a jacket. The church of Ephesus left something bigger and more massive than a thousand books. For all my life, I have heard the wrong word used in this verse, which makes all the difference about the church of Ephesus. It’s a verse that if anyone has been in the church for any amount of time, they have probably said it, heard it, or even quoted it. I have always said, “You have&nbsp;lost&nbsp;your first love.” Not one version of the Bible puts “lost” in this verse. It is, “You have&nbsp;left.” Lost&nbsp;has the connotation of removing blame from the person, as in my “love for God” just got accidentally lost in the hustle and bustle of life. Let’s be clear: Ephesus&nbsp;left&nbsp;it. Ephesus did not&nbsp;lose&nbsp;its first love. There is blame here. That’s why they are not being challenged “to find it” but to repent for it. Repentance deals with responsibility. Ephesus is the only church to have two different apostles write letters to it. In the book of Ephesians, Paul offers two prayers for the church, that they might have more light and more love. This was one of the few places Paul stayed for a length of time (three years). The church of Ephesus was first pastored by Apollos. Timothy then became the pastor (the first epistle to Timothy was while he was pastoring the Ephesus church; see 1 Timothy 1:3). Later on, John pastored the church. It was while he was in Ephesus that John was exiled to Patmos. How do you lose your first love when your pastors were Apollos, Timothy, and John? How do you lose your first love when you had the apostle Paul hang with your church for three years? How do you lose your first love when you get two New Testament letters written to you? Two thoughts: First, Jesus say

Day 239 Today's Reading: Revelation 1 When music, lights, and atmosphere are what we need to get us to praise God, we have chosen cheap praise. Cheap praise needs props to inspire. Real praise needs a revelation. In today’s reading, we’ve reached the final book of the New Testament. Get ready for a roller coaster of a ride through the book of Revelation. The book’s title and first words keep us centered and steady in a very controversial book: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” The author, John, wants us to know throughout this book that we are not looking for events to happen but for a Person to come, Jesus. The word&nbsp;revelation&nbsp;actually means “unveiling.” It’s the unveiling of Jesus. And it is this unveiling that inspires us to praise. Notice the praise that comes out of John when he speaks of three things Jesus does: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen” (Revelation 1:5-6, NIV). What are the three things that Jesus has done for us that inspire praise? 1. to Him who&nbsp;loves us 2.&nbsp;freed us&nbsp;from our sins by His blood 3. He has&nbsp;made us&nbsp;to be a kingdom and priests to God&nbsp; Let this sink in. First, He&nbsp;loves&nbsp;us. We have this mischaracterization of God that if we can get rid of our sins and clean ourselves up, then God will really love us. Nothing can be further from the truth of Scripture. The word order is so important here in 1:5. He loves us before He frees us. He loves us dirty but loves us so much He won’t leave us that way in our dirt. He loves&nbsp;then&nbsp;frees us. And thank God, He continues to set us free. Or to quote a familiar saying, “He loves us just the way we are, but He loves us so much that He won’t let us stay that way.” Second John says He freed us from our sins by His blood. Every time we celebrate Memorial Day and remember the amazing sacrifice our soldiers made for the greatest nation on the planet, I am reminded that freedom is not free. People paid with their lives to make us free. And nowhere does this price come out than in the freedom that Jesus gives us. He doesn’t just love us, He frees us. His love was costly, which John emphasizes in these three words,&nbsp;by His blood. Our freedom from sin cost the Son of God His life. Third, and finally, He made us kings and priests. We have three parts to what He desires to do in and through us: love, free, and make us. To be forgiven of sins is not the end of our journey. To make us kings and priests to God and Father is His goal and purpose. Kings&nbsp;and&nbsp;priests&nbsp;are two Old Testament words that were used only of special and exclusive groups of people. A king had authority, and a priest had access. And now John tells us because we are loved and free, we have access to God and authority in His name. Then before John can go any further with this thought, he bursts into praise: “Has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen” (Revelation 1:6, NIV). When John realizes that God loves us, God frees us, and God makes him something we have no chance of becoming on our own, he also realizes he has a reason to praise God. When you have a revelation of who Jesus is, you recognize praise is not limited to a building, a day of the week, or a time of the day. Praise is based on your knowledge of who God is and what God has done. Cheap praise needs props. Real praise needs a revelation. And the book of Revelation gives us plenty of fuel for praise. I grew up during a time when praise and worship came out of the book that was in the back

Day 238 Today's Reading: Jude There’s an old saying, “The question is not&nbsp;if&nbsp;we will defend the Christian faith, but how well.” Such a true statement. And today’s reading in Jude, though it’s only one chapter, comes out swinging with it. Jude tells believers he wants to instruct them about this incredible salvation they enjoy together but then goes into fighter mode: Dearly loved friend, I was fully intending to write to you about our&nbsp;amazing&nbsp;salvation we all participate in, but felt the need instead to challenge you to vigorously defend and contend for the beliefs that we cherish. (TPT) The New American Standard Bible says, “to contend earnestly for the faith.” These are important words for our children and us today as we live in a society where our religion, values, and beliefs are under attack. And we are enjoined by Jude not to sit back while this happens but to contend and defend. Now the big question: how? First, let’s deal with&nbsp;what. What kind of culture are we facing? What is the fight we are fighting? Here are two very important words about the culture we live in—relativism&nbsp;and&nbsp;pluralism. Relativism in morals and pluralism in beliefs. What does that mean? Relativism means everyone’s truth is equal. Personal preference trumps everything else. We hear phrases like&nbsp;my truth. Subjectivity trumps objective truth, and the individual and their “truth” is exalted over God. Pluralism means all religions are equal, so no one religion stands above another. There is no thought of examining a religion’s validity. They are all equal—“whatever works for you.” The enemy is Jesus’ words that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Vince Vitale explained our pluralistic and relativistic culture like this: “Imagine being thrown into a game without knowing when it started, when it will finish, what the objective of the game is, or what the rules are. What would you do? You’d probably ask the other players around you to answer those four questions for you. What if they responded with many different answers? Or what if they simply carried on playing, uninterested in your questions? . . . “Next, you look to a coach for help, but what if the coach was standing there, looking at the chaos, and yelling, “Great job, guys! You’re all doing great! Keep going! We’ve got a first-place trophy waiting for all of you!” “Finally, you would turn to the referee or umpire for definitive answers to your questions. But what if the players had gotten frustrated with the referee’s calls and sent him home? And now imagine the conversations about the game on the drive home. They would be completely meaningless.” Rules and standards make the game meaningful and objective. But we are not in a game. When we live in a pluralistic culture, this is our reality. No wonder many people struggle to live a meaningful life! According to Vince Vitale, living in a pluralistic society means that we lose the answers to these four crucial questions: • Origin—Where did I come from? • Meaning—Why am I here? • Morality—How should I live? • Destiny—Where am I headed? So how are we to deal with this? I think the greatest way to contend for the faith is by constantly studying the authentic and the real. As Peter Kreeft brilliantly reminds us: “The more important a thing is the more counterfeits there are. There are no counterfeit paperclips or pencils, but plenty of counterfeit religions.” Think about Kreeft’s words and the counterfeits that are sold on the streets of major cities. There are no counterfeit Timex watches, but Rolex watches. There are no counterfeit Bic pens but Montblanc pens. There are no counterfeit Target brands on the street, on

Day 237 Today's Reading: 3 John Where parents used to rely on peers or their parents to help them navigate parenting challenges, such as bedtime, homework, and tantrums, many are now turning to parenting coaches. Many of these coaches charge between $125 to $350 a session and meet with parents—either in person, by phone, or over Skype—to set goals and develop a plan to reach them. Parenting coaches, which is a more recent profession of just the past twenty years, has taken its place in the $1.08 billion personal coaching industry in the States. It seems more and more Americans choose to hire experts to help them improve every area of their lives—from parenting to sleeping, to finances, to life in general. Parents who invest that kind of money in this arena have one goal—joy. They want to see their children succeed, which in turn brings joy to their lives. In today’s chapter, the apostle John says something about spiritual parenting, which is true for all parenting: “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth” (3 John 1:4). There is no greater joy for a parent than to see their children succeed. Based on 3 John’s passage, we understand that “succeed” means having our children walking with God. The words of Jesus couldn’t be clearer and more true when He said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Having our children graduate college, get good grades, succeed in business, have a great marriage, have healthy grandchildren—mean a lot, but not at the expense of not having a strong spiritual life. Our first priority as parents is their spiritual lives. Steven Furtick, the pastor of Elevation Church, said, “My goal in parenting is to raise my kids to have a boring testimony. In other words, to stay out of trouble and love Jesus all their lives. It’s just that I’d prefer that my kids change the world without having to have the world first change them. A person’s testimony does not have to be spectacularly sinful to be significant.” One of my dear friends told me, “You are only as happy as the child who is doing the worst.” That means when one of my kids is not following God or going through a bad time, that is the watermark of joy for a parent. How do you get the joy of knowing all your kids are walking in truth? It starts with you, not them. As T. D. Jakes said, “You can teach what you know but you can only reproduce what you are.” That’s why this article caught my attention several years ago: “An annual Easter egg hunt attended by hundreds of children has been canceled because of misbehavior last year. Not by the kids, but by the grown-ups. Too many parents, determined to see their children get an egg, jumped a rope marking the boundaries of the children-only hunt at Bancroft Park [in Colorado Springs, Colorado] last year. The hunt was over in seconds, to the consternation of eggless tots and the rules-abiding parents. Parenting observers cite the cancellation as a prime example of so-called “helicopter parents”—those who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their children’s lives—to ensure that they don’t fail, even at an Easter egg hunt.” Misbehaving children are usually the result of misbehaving parents. Your children need to see your life with God and your convictions. If they see you compromise or try to “get ahead,” they will become disillusioned with religion, like a young Jewish boy who once lived in Germany. His father, a successful businessman, moved their family to another German city and then told the family that instead of attending the local synagogue, they were going to join the Lutheran church. The boy, who had a deep interest in religion, was surprised and asked his father why the switch. His father answered that it was better for business sinc

Day 236 Today's Reading: 2 John In my library, I have more than fifteen thousand books. I love books on preaching. Two preeminent nineteenth-century preachers whose sermons are in my library are Charles Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Sermons—sixty-three volumes) and Joseph Parker (Preaching Through the Bible). Both men had powerful churches in London at the same time. City Temple and Metropolitan Tabernacle were contemporaries, and both did amazing things. Though their books sit side by side on my bookshelf, the men in person seemed to have some issues with each other. Joseph Parker published an open letter in the newspaper to express his concerns for his friend and colleague, Charles Spurgeon. The letter read, “Let me advise you to widen the circle of which you are the center. You are surrounded by offerers of incense. They flatter your weakness, they laugh at your jokes, they feed you with compliments. My dear Spurgeon, you are too big a man for this.” Today’s chapter, 2 John, maybe a very short letter, but it has a huge message for Joseph Parker in the nineteenth century and for us in the twenty-first century. In John’s small thirteen-verse letter, he ends it with these practical words that we all need to hear: “Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to&nbsp;do so&nbsp;with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, so that your joy may be made full” (verse 12). Many believe 2 John was written to the same people that 1 John was written to. What is interesting is that when he starts off the letter “to the chosen lady and her children,” some think he is writing to the church and not a mom and kids, that it was a metaphor for the bride of Christ. Regardless, the apostle wanted to say a number of things to these Christians. John gives us this amazing practical advice: some things can be paper and ink, and some things must be face to face. This is so good. And John delineates for us that all information is not disseminated the same way. I would like to put in my two cents to tell you what I think is face-to-face and what I think is ink and paper. While I was attending the funeral of a loved one out of respect, a family member showed me something I could not believe. He pulled from his pocket a forty-year-old letter that was written to the deceased. A pastor had written the letter and in it shared some concerns and bad news with that person. I saw the letter’s fold marks that were about to come apart from being opened and folded so many times over the years to show people the audacity of the preacher. This person, now deceased, was so angry with the letter and the pastor’s insight on a situation that he’d carried it around for four decades. By the way, I read the letter, and the preacher’s words were true, but that is not the point. The point is that someone carried around a letter that infuriated him for forty years, and now it’s in the hands of a family member who I pray does not do the same. Though the preacher’s words were true, they did not belong on paper. Some things are paper and ink, and some things are face to face. Here is the rule: anything that is corrective or negative must be done face to face. Anything positive and encouraging can be done with paper and ink. Why? Posterity and longevity. Paper can be saved. Even for forty years. I want people to hold onto a positive and encouraging text message or letter of uplifting words. I want them to be able to look at it, again and again, to bring joy and hope in tough times. I have done that before. When something is hard and corrective, then do it face to face. People need to hear your tone, see your facial expressions, notice your tears, and be able to ask questions. I wish Joseph Parker would have gone face to face with Spurgeon and not paper and ink. His concerns for a friend sho

Day 235 Today's Reading: 1 John 5 Next time you are in the airport, I want you to notice something: observe the difference between passengers who hold confirmed tickets and those who are on a standby list. The ones with confirmed tickets read newspapers, chat with their friends, or sleep. The ones on standby hang around the ticket counter, pace, and wait to hear their names called to go to the front desk. Which is the signal they have a seat. The difference in the two types of passengers is caused by the assurance factor. For the standby passengers, their whole day is one big question mark. Will they get on the plane? What time will they get home? How long will they have to wait? There is nothing worse than living a travel day with one big question mark. There is a travel day coming for every human being, and we have two destinations: heaven and hell. Let’s talk about a confirmed ticket for eternal life. Can we really know for sure? Today’s chapter gives us that assurance to eternal life: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). If you ask someone the question, “Do you know if you are going to heaven?” and their answer is, “I hope so” or “I think I am,” that person seems to have a standby ticket attitude with a confirmed ticket in hand. It’s unbiblical and reveals an unread Bible. There is a whole book of the Bible to give them—and us—assurance. It is 1 John. Verse 13 is so clear: “These things I have written . . . so you can know you have eternal life.” John wants us to know we have a confirmed ticket and we can have a confirmed-ticket attitude. He is saying to every Christian that we should not be a question mark but an exclamation point for God. And he helps us to do it. We are not any more secure in Christ whether we have a big faith or a small faith—as long as we have a true faith. And true faith is this—that we believe in the Son of God. Every Christian should be able to say, “I know I am saved and going to heaven.” Why? Edward Mote’s lyrics from this old hymn tell us: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. One phrase always sticks out to me with this famous hymn:&nbsp;I dare not trust the sweetest frame.&nbsp;What does “frame” mean? We say things like, “He is not in the right frame of mind.” Webster’s dictionary says that “frame” is a particular mood that influences one’s attitude or behavior. And the songwriter says, “I dare not trust it”—even when it’s sweet. Even the sweetest frame will let us down. We are born again not because of how we feel but because of what Christ has done for you and me, and we believe He died for you and me. A man once came to D. L. Moody and said he was worried because he didn’t feel saved. Moody asked, “Was Noah safe in the ark?” “Certainly he was,” the man replied. “Well, what made him safe, his feeling or the ark?” The inquirer got the point. “How foolish I’ve been!” he said. “It is not my feeling; it is Christ who saves!” If you follow or know anything about golf, you’ve probably heard names such as Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods. But have you ever heard of Doug Ford? He won the 1957 Masters. He never won again and he hasn’t made the cut since 1971 (four years before Tiger Woods was born), but every year he is invited to play in the Masters. Why is Doug Ford invited? Because the Masters’ rules include a lifetime invitation to every champion to play in the event. Although Ford only won the tournament once, hasn’t qualified in nearly three decades, and hasn’t been able to break par since 1958, he still gets to play in the tournament. One single occasion got him the forever invite. Our salvation is

Day 234 Today's Reading: 1 John 4 For many years when researchers asked Americans about their top fears, here is how Americans responded: Their number 1 fear: public speaking. Their number 2: death. Think of it. People would rather die than speak in front of people. That's especially an issue for Christians because Christianity is very vocal: vocal in praise, vocal in witnessing, vocal in preaching. It's tough to be a silent Christian. Fortunately, 1 John 4 provides an antidote, a simple prescription, to fighting fear: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love" (verse 18). Perfect love casts out fear. I don't cast out fear "in the name of Jesus." I don't bind it. Fear is removed by displacement.&nbsp;Love&nbsp;removes fear. Love casts it out, not me. Fear is actually a love problem. Two explorers were on a jungle safari when suddenly a ferocious lion jumped in front of them. "Keep calm," the first explorer whispered. "Remember what we read in that book on wild animals? If you stand perfectly still and look the lion in the eye, he will turn and run." "Sure," replied his companion. "You've read the book, and I've read the book. But has the lion read the book?" Reading books and going to counseling does not seem to deal with fear when the lion is looking you right in the eye. But John says love fixes fear. When I am afraid to speak to someone about Jesus, the truth is, I don't love them. In fact, I love me and my security and what that person thinks about me more than I love that person and their future and eternity! What an indictment. The same is true when we have to correct someone. Think of it from a parent standpoint. If I refuse to correct my son or daughter, knowing their attitude or behavior is destructive, I am saying my refusal is because of fear, which is a love issue. I love being their friend more than their parent. I love keeping calm in my house. I love my peace and quiet, so I say nothing. How about worship? When the Bible instructs me to lift holy hands, and I just can't do it because I am self-conscious, isn't that fear? Fear of what others think of me? And fear is a love problem. I don't want to appear like a fanatic in front of people. So how do we face fear? I want you to think of a conversation that Jesus had with a very fearful man after His resurrection. Fear made him deny Jesus three times. His name was Peter, and the conversation was fixing fear with love. The apostle John captured the conversation in John 21:15-17: "So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon,&nbsp;son&nbsp;of John, do you love Me more than these?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Tend My lambs." He said to him again a second time, "Simon,&nbsp;son&nbsp;of John, do you love Me?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Shepherd My sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon,&nbsp;son&nbsp;of John, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Tend My sheep." The man that Jesus was going to use to preach the first message of the church in Acts 2 was Peter. The man who couldn't even speak to a little girl without denying Jesus was now going to have to testify of Jesus&nbsp;in the same place&nbsp;he buckled in fear. What is revelatory about Jesus fighting Peter's fear is that Jesus never asked Peter, "Do you love sheep?" Jesus said, "Do you love me? Because if you love Me, then you will do the right thing for them." So t

Day 233 Today's Reading: 1 John 3 One of the greatest thrills for any violinist is to play a Stradivarius. Named for their creator, Antonio Stradivari, who meticulously handcrafted these rare violins, which produce an amazing sound. So you can imagine the excitement of acclaimed British violinist Peter Cropper when, in 1981, London’s Royal Academy of Music offered him a 258-year-old Stradivarius to play during a series of concerts. But then the unimaginable happened. As Cropper walked onto the stage during a concert, he tripped and fell on the violin, breaking off the neck. Forget being embarrassed—he’d just destroyed a priceless masterpiece! Cropper was inconsolable about what he’d done and vowed to do whatever he could to make it right. He took the violin to a master craftsman in the vain hope that he might be able to fix it. A miracle happened, and the craftsman was able to repair it. In fact, he repaired it so perfectly that the break was undetectable—and the sound was exquisite. The Academy was gracious enough to allow him to continue using the rare instrument. And for the remainder of the concert series, as Cropper played, he was reminded of the fact that what he once thought irreparably damaged had been fully restored by the hand of a Master craftsman. Our lives are in continual repair by the Master. That repair work has a name: sanctification. And one day, these broken lives will be a Stradivarius to God. Sanctification is what happens between now and know, between being born again and Jesus’ coming again. Here’s what 1 John 3 says about&nbsp;now and know: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is”(verse 2). Now&nbsp;is the condition we are in presently. The broken violin. Broken by sin. The&nbsp;Know—that’s the end when all the repairs are done, and we will be like Jesus. In between? That’s the repair process called sanctification. We can compare the process of sanctification to an iceberg, which is almost 90 percent underwater. As the sun shines on the iceberg, the exposed part melts, moving the lower part upward. In the same way, we are usually aware of only a small part of our sinfulness and need, which is all we can deal with at any one time. However, as the light of God’s work in our lives changes us in the areas we know about, we become aware of new areas needing His work. So put simply, sanctification is God’s continual working on me, getting me closer to looking like Jesus. It’s a good work, but it isn’t an easy work. As D. L. Moody once said, “I’ve had more trouble with D. L. Moody than any other man I know.” Devotional writer of the classic&nbsp;My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, said this about sanctification: “[sanctification] will cause an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth, and an immense broadening of all our interests in God. Sanctification means intense concentration on God’s point of view. It means every power of body, soul, and spirit chained and kept for God’s purpose only.” And F. F. Bruce speaks about the work of sanctification between now and know as imperative: “Those who have been justified are now being sanctified; those who have no experience of present sanctification have no reason to suppose they have been justified.” Nineteenth-century writer J. C. Ryle even takes it to a new level when he says: “The faith which has not a sanctifying influence on the character is no better than the faith of devils. It is a ‘dead faith, because it is alone.’” My favorite book of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series has always been The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. At one point in the book, the irritating antagonis

Day 232 Today's Reading: 1 John 2 Author and pastor Tony Evans once said: I spilled coffee on my suit pants recently. It did not matter whether I spilled it accidentally or intentionally. It stained my pants. There was a stain, and it needed to be cleansed. But I don’t let the fact that we have Tide detergent at home, a detergent that removes stains, allow me to dip my pants in coffee every day. I still try to avoid spilling stuff on my pants. No one says that since they have a washing machine and a dry cleaner, I can get as dirty as I want, do they? God knows every now and then coffee is going to spill, and He wants us to know that when it happens, we have a Cleanser. We have a spiritual washing machine. We have the blood of Jesus. In today’s chapter, the apostle John wants to tell us about that spiritual washing machine and the blood of Jesus: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for&nbsp;those of&nbsp;the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2). There are two really important words here that every Christian must become familiar with:&nbsp;advocate&nbsp;and&nbsp;propitiation. Let’s start with&nbsp;propitiation. The word is one of the great words of the Bible, even though it appears only four times in the New Testament. The word was used to describe an Old Testament object in the holy of holies called the mercy seat. The mercy seat sat on top of the ark of the covenant with two cherubim. We were all reintroduced to it during&nbsp;Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it’s not in a warehouse in Washington DC nor at Area 51. In the Old Testament times, the priests would put the blood of the animal sacrifice on top of the mercy seat. The blood on the mercy seat would cover the contents of the ark—the Ten Commandments, which the children of Israel were constantly breaking. Every Year when the priest would go in and ask forgiveness for the sins of the nation of Israel, God would look down and not see the disobedience of man but the blood of the sacrifice. Propitiation was made. That is exactly what Jesus did for us. That’s why&nbsp;Advocate&nbsp;is just as important. It was a court word used by the person who spoke up for the accused. The word means to stand side by side, right next to the other person, the accused. When you are in a court of law and being accused of something, you, as the defendant, don’t speak. The lawyer, the advocate, speaks for you. He understands the law and understands the case. What John is trying to tell us is that when we sin, not if we sin, we have an Advocate who has an open-and-shut case on our behalf. It’s not how good we are or how many successful sinless days we have. It’s that our Advocate, Jesus, shows the smoking-gun evidence of why we are innocent: His blood. His shed blood was spilled on our behalf. We don’t say a word because the blood speaks for itself. We are found innocent and Propitiated at that moment. Charles Spurgeon tells us why this is beyond the courts of men and for the court of heaven and why being good or moral isn’t enough: “Morality may keep you out of jail, but it takes the blood of Jesus Christ to keep you out of hell.” Like the old hymn says, “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” As a Christian, I am not sinless, but when I become a Christian, I will&nbsp;sin less&nbsp;and less. But I still sin and need something to fall on and into. We fall into our great Advocate, Jesus. After we get saved, we must not forget our greatest safety device, the blood of Jesus. We have an Advocate, and that Advocate has

Day 231 Today's Reading: 1 John 1 My wife and I have been married for more than two decades, and what she told me at the beginning of our marriage was both genius and biblical. Cindy said to me, “I will never complain or fight you on the amount of time you spend in the Word and in prayer. Because when you pray and read the Bible, you are a better husband, a better father, a better pastor, and a better man.” My wife is a very wise woman. Cindy and the apostle John give us the prerequisite for great relationships. Here’s how John puts it: “If we keep living in the pure light that surrounds him, we share&nbsp;unbroken&nbsp;fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, continually cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7, TPT). Fellowship with one another. The word&nbsp;fellowship&nbsp;is a strong relationship word in the Bible. The word itself means “to share” and “to be in partnership with.” Real fellowship is walking in agreement and in the same direction. In&nbsp;The Living Church,&nbsp;pastor and writer John R. W. Stott provides the three components of true Christian fellowship: our common inheritance, our common service, and our mutual responsibility. Where does this fellowship start? This is important: our fellowship with people is contingent on our walk with God. In order for there to be fellowship, according to 1 John 1:7, there must be light and blood. The light keeps everything open and accountable; the blood keeps everything forgivable if there is a sin encounter. When Cindy was urging me to my knees and the Bible, she was protecting our fellowship as husband and wife. There is no healthy, thriving relationship without light and blood. We need light and blood to deal with sin because sin is the corrupter of all relationships, starting with the most important one, with God. Why is sin damaging to all relationships? Sin alters all relationships. The essence of sin is selfishness. It’s always “me and mine” first, where God, who is without sin, thinks of you and me first. In&nbsp;Why Prayers Are Unanswered, John A. Lavender retells a story about Norman Vincent Peale. When Peale was a boy, he found a cigar, so he slipped into an alley and lit up. It didn’t taste very good, but it made him feel very grown-up—until he spotted his father coming toward him. Knowing he’d get into trouble if his father caught him smoking, he quickly put the cigar behind his back and tried to act casual. Desperate to divert his father’s attention, Norman pointed to a billboard advertising the circus. “Can I go, Dad? Please, let’s go when the circus comes to town.” His father’s reply taught Peale a lesson he never forgot. “Son,” he answered quietly but firmly, “never make a petition while at the same time trying to hide a smoldering disobedience.” Light exposes sin. Blood forgives sin. My walk with Jesus has a direct bearing on my fellowship, not only with my family but with all people. If I am walking in the light, then I have fellowship, John says.&nbsp; What does it mean to walk in the light? It is to live a life that is scrutinized by the Spirit, and that’s open and honest to those around you. When there is no darkness, that means nothing is hidden. When I am giving marital counseling and seeing that there is a great divide in the relationship between husband and wife, my first question to them is, “Tell me about your devotional life.” While the couple is wanting to fix a toilet seat not put down, socks not picked up, and meals not on time, the real issue is light and blood. Inevitably I hear from them both that their time in the Word and prayer is nonexistent—and so is their relationship with each other. Fellowship with one another is contingent on light that exposes our life, and blood forgives whatever is expo

Day 230 Today's Reading: 2 Peter 3 A pastor was walking down a row of fine old Victorian homes in his neighborhood on a cold day when he spotted a young boy on the front porch of one of those homes. The old-fashioned doorbell was set high in the door, and the little fellow was too short to ring it despite his leaping attempts. Feeling sorry for the youngster, the pastor stepped up onto the porch and vigorously rang the bell for him. “And now what, young man?” inquired the minister. “Now,” exclaimed the boy, “we run like crazy!” When I was a kid, we used to call that “ring and run.” We have to be careful who we hang out with because their issues may become our issues. What that pastor thought was just a kind deed for a little boy was actually making him an accessory to his mischief. In today’s chapter, Peter is appealing for us to grow but also connecting our growth to whom we are in a relationship with: You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him&nbsp;be&nbsp;the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Peter 3:17-18) One of the hardest decisions you will face in life is choosing whether to walk away or to try harder in a relationship. In verse 17, Peter is giving the green light for walking away, so these new Christians don’t fall from their own steadfastness. The Contemporary English Version says, “Don’t let the errors of evil people lead you down the wrong path and make you lose your balance.” You find firm ground and footing in your Christian life. If there is one thing that can knock you off your consistency, it is a poor relationship. Peter says unprincipled men can stunt your growth. That’s why Peter warns about the negative influence of a relationship. I remember this illustration from my youth group when I was growing up. Our youth pastor put someone on top of a chair and someone down below him. He asked us, “Which is easier, for the person on the chair to pull the other up or for the person on the ground to pull him down?” The answer is easy. It is much easier for the person in the lower position to pull down the other than the person in the high position to pull the lower person up to where he is. This is exactly what Peter is saying. You have those very same people in verse 17. And Peter is saying that we can lose our steadfastness if we don’t let go of the unprincipled people in our lives because they will pull us down. There’s an old but powerful visual illustration to this idea that says, “If you drop a white glove into the mud, the glove will get muddy, but the mud will never get glovey.” Peter wants us to stay white and pure. As George Washington once wrote, “Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for ’tis better to be alone than in bad Company.” Or consider William Gladstone’s observation, “Choose wisely your companions, for a young man’s companions, more than his food or clothes, his home or his parents, make him what he is.” A relationship with two opposite people—one wanting to grow in God and the other living for themselves—is the recipe for two people living for themselves. There is an asterisk to this principle, which is given to us in 1 Corinthians 7, and which I have to make clear. This is not an approval for a divorce if one of the spouses is not a Christian. In fact, Paul is really clear that if you have a believer and an unbeliever married, God says He will let the believer be the principal influencer in that relationship and even protect the children. But when it comes to&nbsp;friendships, be careful and understand that the unprincipled lives of others can have an adverse

Day 229 Today's Reading: 2 Peter 2 You made your bed, now lie in it. Have you heard this phrase? It means you made that decision, now you have to deal with its consequences.” That is true if it weren’t for the grace of God. Today’s chapter brings back Old Testament stories to the reader. Peter speaks about Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah, Balaam, and the character he introduces with an adjective I would never assign to him, righteous Lot. Not Lot, but&nbsp;righteous&nbsp;Lot: If&nbsp;He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard&nbsp;that&nbsp;righteous man, while living among them, felt&nbsp;his&nbsp;righteous soul tormented day after day by&nbsp;their&nbsp;lawless deeds),&nbsp;then&nbsp;the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. (2 Peter 2:7-9) When I read the story of Lot, I don’t see him as righteous. Thank God I’m not God. I judge people too fast. It’s easy to assign adjectives to people who God never sees and believes about them. The part of this verse that puzzles me about God, though, is that Lot is called righteous, and God rescues him. But Peter explains and tells us why it’s important to us. He says that God rescued the righteous Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot was being oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men. You might think,&nbsp;This is a godly brother who got stuck in a really bad neighborhood that God had to burn down with fire from heaven. Not even close to the truth. Lot&nbsp;chose&nbsp;to live in Sodom. Sodom was his&nbsp;first&nbsp;choice when Abraham, his uncle, said he could have any part of the land he wanted. Lot not only chose Sodom, but Genesis says, “He sat in the gate at Sodom” (Genesis 19:1, KJV). That means he was part of the government of the city. And despite all this, God showed off His graciousness by rescuing him from his really bad choice. God didn’t rescue a man who had something unfortunate happen to him. God rescued a man who made a really stupid decision. How many of us have made a bad decision before? How many of us are so thankful for the grace of God? Nineteenth-century Bible teacher J. Wilbur Chapman said: “Anything that dims my vision of Christ, or takes away my taste for Bible study, or cramps me in my prayer life, or makes Christian work difficult, is wrong for me, and I must, as a Christian, turn away from it.” Lot didn’t think that way. And if we are honest, you and I have made decisions that violated Chapman’s grid. So many times, God rescues us before we are swallowed by our poor choices and decisions. There are also times that God just vetoes bad decisions—in this case, bad prayers. One of the biggest atheists over the centuries was Robert Ingersoll. At a lecture, he opened his pocket watch for all the students to see and said, “I will give God five minutes to strike me dead for the things I said.” When the five minutes were over, he shut the watch and said, “God did not retaliate because God does not exist.” When evangelist Joseph Parker heard about the incident, he responded, “And did the gentleman think he could exhaust the patience of eternal God in five minutes?” God is bigger than our threats. Because God is love, God is patient. And because God is love and patient with us, He calls Lot righteous. Righteousness has nothing to do with our perfection but with God’s view of us. I can be the righteousness of God in Christ and an idiot at the same time. I think many would think Lot should have perished in the fire of Sodom, but not God. Peter reminds us that God knows how to rescue the godly. Even if rescue means dragging a man out of danger when he is dragging his feet with no urgency. That was Lot’s story during God’s rescue pl

Day 228 Today's Reading: 2 Peter 1 A young man was at the zebra enclosure at the Cairo International Garden municipal park and noticed something wrong about the zebras. When he took a closer look, he became convinced that the animals being touted as zebras were actually donkeys painted to look like zebras. He took a photo and posted his accusation on Facebook. The photo gained the attention of a local news team, who contacted a veterinarian, who claimed that zebra snouts are usually black, and their stripes are more consistent and uniform compared to the striping on the animal in the photo which also sported black smudging around the face. A zoo in Gaza also received similar accusations of donkey-painting in 2009. The zoo claimed they did it because of an Israeli blockade that prevented the zoo from purchasing actual zebras. Do you know what a knockoff is? It’s the counterfeit of an expensive brand of anything. There are knockoff watches, pens, purses, sunglasses, almost anything. They have the same markings, and the same logo, and the same colors, but they are the cheap versions of designer pieces. You buy them on the street instead of in the store. A knockoff Rolex is about $15. A knockoff Montblanc pen is about $10. A knockoff Coach purse is about $25. The knockoff has the same outward markings but lacks the craftsmanship. Knockoffs are exposed by time and use. If it’s real, it lasts. If it’s real, it can endure. If it’s real, you’ll know it because it doesn’t diminish even when it faces harsh circumstances. In today’s chapter, Peter has something significant to say about the real thing. He starts off with comparing his faith and the new church’s faith, which is separated by decades: “Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:1). He is writing to Christians who “received a faith of the same kind as ours.” These words are significant. This epistle was written in AD 68, and Peter’s time with Jesus was in the late AD 20s. Some forty years later, Peter makes this bombshell statement—that these believers’ faith is the same kind as his. Think of this. He is telling them that they have the real thing, not some knockoff or second-rate faith.” Think too of who is saying this. It is someone who talked with Jesus, saw His miracles, witnessed the transfiguration (Peter speaks about that at the end of this chapter), saw Christ die, saw Him after He rose again, ate a fish dinner with Him, and saw Jesus taken up in the ascension. And he tells these Christians forty years later that their faith in Jesus and his faith in Jesus is the same! When I was a student at Baylor University, I did not have a lot of spending money. My father sent me $75 a month. I remember all these students walking around campus with Ralph Lauren Polos, and I desperately wanted one. The problem was that I did not have $32 to buy one. Then one day, I saw a guy selling knockoff Polos on a street corner in Waco, Texas. They were only $5. Now I get to be like everyone else,&nbsp;I thought, as I forked over $5 for a knockoff purple Polo. I noticed that the rider of the horse and the horse itself were slightly detached, but hey, it was only $5! I wore my Polo&nbsp;one day&nbsp;and then washed it. It went from a Large to a 2T. The wash shrunk it. When it’s real, it lasts. When it’s real, time is not an enemy. It is a revealer. Peter’s and these Christians’ faith are real. It can go through hard times, denial times (Peter knows about that), scared and cowardly times (Peter knows about that), and still come out the same. Hard times, harsh circumstances, persecution, tribulation—none of these will be able to take away that faith when it’s real. And if

Day 227 Today's Reading: 1 Peter 5 Puritan writer Thomas Brooks said: “If God were not my friend, Satan would not be so much my enemy.” In today’s chapter, Peter warns that our enemy, the devil, prowls around us like a lion wanting his next meal: “Be of sober&nbsp;spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Satan seeking to devour means he is on a mission to take down God’s children. There is a Bible study tool called “The law of first use.” It can be a valuable tool when studying a topic in the Bible. It works by looking at the first time a word is used in the Scripture to see how it is used. If we applied it to “devil,”&nbsp;we’d find it first appears in Genesis 3. And the first thing the Bible ever says about the devil is this: “The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made” (verse 1, NLT). This means that Satan is shrewd in Operation Devour. He shrewdly finds ways to devour people. Another Puritan writer, William Jenkyn, said it like this: “He hath an apple for Eve, a grape for Noah, a change of raiment for Gehazi, a bag for Judas. He can dish out his meat for all palates.” I do not want to be the devil’s next meal. I have learned some interesting things about lions when they are on the hunt to devour. We can learn some of Satan’s tactics since Peter describes the devil as a lion. Or, as Paul says, “We are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11, NKJV). For a hunt to be successful, a lion must first stalk close while undetected and then attack with a rush before the surprised prey has a chance to flee. A lion’s prey knows that a visible lion is a safe lion because they are too slow to catch an animal alert to its presence. A herd of gazelle will allow a lion to walk past them at only a hundred feet away! A second way lions hunt is that they catch whatever is easiest! They often kill the very young, sick, old, or careless. And finally, as Robert Simmons observed, “when the fire goes out, the lions move in.” When the fire of a camp goes out at night, this is a lion’s signal to move in to devour its prey. Simmons tells the story of a doctor and his wife who had traveled to the jungle in Africa. After a long flight from America and a full day of birdwatching and photography, they went to bed in their tent with a campfire outside. They had been warned to keep logs on the fire all night, or the lions would come in. The fire was blazing hot when they fell into such a deep sleep that they failed to notice when the fire became smoldering embers. Under the guise of darkness, a lioness stuck her head into the tent and killed the doctor’s wife. One of the ways we keep from becoming the devil’s next meal is by keeping our hearts on fire for God. Remember in Luke 24:32 when the two men on the road to Emmaus realized, “Were not&nbsp;our hearts burning&nbsp;within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?” (emphasis added). Our hearts will stay on fire as God speaks to us through His Word. Every time we open God’s Word, it’s like putting another log on the fire. Finally, when does the devil devour? Again Robert Simmons offers his insight: “Where stragglers roam, lions feed.” These are animals out grazing alone. He says: In Africa, lions will lay out watching herds. Lions know their own strength, but he also knows the strength of numbers. When he looks at a herd of zebras, he knows if he attacks one and the herd stampedes, they would trample him. When he sees one rebelliously remove himself and independently feed away from the herd, that can be his next meal. When that zebra gets far enough away from the pack, the lion pounces, pulls it into the tall grass, goes for the jugular, and has begun eating the meat

Day 226 Today's Reading: 1 Peter 4 C. S. Lewis said, “Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they &nbsp;have something to forgive.” That was certainly true for Corrie ten Boom. The story is well-known, but I think it’s a powerful illustration for us. Corrie and her family hid Jews during the Holocaust. The Nazis found out and put her entire family into the concentration camps, where they all died except Corrie. After World War II and her release, she traveled extensively, telling her story and sharing the gospel. In 1947 she was in Munich speaking about God’s forgiveness, and she saw a familiar face. It was one of the cruelest guards from the concentration camp she and her sister had been imprisoned in. Though she recognized him, he did not recognize her. “You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,” he told her after the service. “I was a guard there. . . . But since that time I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, will you forgive me?” He thrust his hand out to her. She stood paralyzed. This man had been a monster; he had filled her with shame and misery every day. How could she preach forgiveness when she was staring into the face of someone she needed to forgive but couldn’t. She did the only thing she knew to do, she prayed right there on the spot.&nbsp;Jesus, help me! I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling, she prayed silently. “So woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place,” she said. Power surged through her. “I forgive you, brother!” she said and cried. When you forgive, you don’t change the past, but you sure do change the future. As poet William Blake said, “The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.” Corrie forgave the man, but there is another part of forgiveness that often gets neglected. That part is what we look at in today’s chapter. Peter’s strategy on forgiving people is one of the most important lessons in relationships: “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Love covers a multitude of sins. When I am hurt by someone, I have two choices to resolve that hurt. Since forgiveness is not an option for me as a Christian, I have the choice of&nbsp;how&nbsp;I will forgive: I can confront it, or I can cover it. Remember this about forgiveness: we base it on what God has done for us, not on what another person has done to us. That means another person’s apology, repentance, or admission of wrongdoing is not our motivation. Our forgiveness from God is our motivation. According to Ephesians 4:32, we forgive because we have been forgiven. Peter wants us to cover the offense. And that fervent love is the prerequisite for that choice. We can’t cover an offense because we don’t want to confront a person, but we can cover a hurt because we fervently love someone. To cover a hurt is very biblical, meaning that not everything that is hurtful has to be an offense. We don’t have to address everything every time we are offended. In fact, I think it’s a sign of maturity to let certain things go. There are some things I think God wants us to absorb to show and extend mercy. Why? Because that is the only way to build our mercy account: As Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matthew 5:7). There will come a day when we will need to withdraw from our mercy account, and that can only happen if we show mercy, not simply pray for mercy. Proverbs 19:11, NIV, says there is honor in covering an offense: “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” The gre

Day 225 Today's Reading: 1 Peter 3 The story goes that a lady approached Charles Spurgeon and told him that she felt called to the&nbsp;ministry. Spurgeon asked about her home and family. When he heard she had thirteen children, he exclaimed, “Well, praise God, not only has He called you to the ministry, but He’s given you a congregation as well!” Our family is our first ministry priority. But how do you win your family to Christ? Today’s chapter is one of the most important sections of the New Testament that gives us brilliant advice on how to win family members to Christ.&nbsp; But let me first tell you what was happening in the early church. Women were getting saved faster than men. In fact, the women wrote to Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 asking if they should divorce their husbands since they were saved and their spouses were not. Paul told them, “Not so fast”: If a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is content to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been made holy by his believing wife. And the unbelieving wife has been made holy by her believing husband&nbsp;by virtue of his or her sacred union to a believer. Otherwise, the children from this union would be unclean, but in fact, they are holy. And wives, for all you know, you could one day lead your husband to salvation. Or husbands, how do you know for sure that you could not one day lead your wife to salvation? (1 Corinthians 7:13-16, TPT) Wives, for all you know, you could one day lead your husband to salvation. It seems once Paul got the women to stay with the unsaved spouses, Peter stepped in. Here is the strategy he gave to win them to Christ: In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any&nbsp;of them&nbsp;are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. (1 Peter 3:1-2) Peter’s advice to the women: stop using words; stop talking. There comes a time when you must tell yourself; They&nbsp;have heard the gospel message from me. Now they must see the effects of the gospel through my life and not just through my lips. It’s time for them to see Christ, not just hear about Christ. Preaching the gospel does not just need your voice. It is more powerful when it’s shown through the other parts of your body. I think Peter’s words to these women are not just for ladies with unsaved husbands but for anyone with an unsaved family member whom they want to win to the Lord. I love Peter’s words:&nbsp;that they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives. The way a son wins a father . . . the way a daughter wins a grandmother . . . the way a brother wins his sister . . . through behavior! They can watch the life of Christ as it comes through us in our attitudes, our commitments, and our actions. A. W. Tozer said: “There are those rare Christians whose very presence is an incitement to you to want to be a better Christian.” I want to be that rare Christian. I think the same is true for those who are not Christians wanting to become a Christian because someone’s life inspired them. There comes a time when doing the dishes, being home at curfew when asked, respecting the rules of the home, showing wise stewardship over the family finances, and making family a priority preaches more than if you had a preacher in the home. Peter was giving advice not just to women but to all saved family members who live in the house with unsaved family members. The first words of verse 1 are so important: “In the same way . . .” He was referring to the verses in 1 Peter 2. The same way as . . . ? Here is who Peter was referencing: This is the kind

Day 224 Today's Reading: 1 Peter 2 The people to whom Peter wrote the letters of 1 and 2 Peter were believers experiencing severe persecution under the reign and government of the Roman emperor Nero. Nero was a psycho and afflicted these believers with horrendous acts of evil. He threw women and children into the Coliseum for sport to be torn apart by lions. He impaled believers on stakes and burned them as human torches to light up his decadent evening parties. In fact, not long after Peter wrote his second letter, tradition states that Nero had him crucified upside down. Martyrdom was not just a first-century problem but is still happening today. According to the World Evangelical Alliance, more than 200 million Christians in at least 60 countries are denied fundamental human rights solely because of their faith. Some estimates show that approximately 175,000 Christians have been martyred annually within only a few years, and if those trends continue, by 2025, an average of 210,000 Christians will be martyred annually. In his first letter, Peter wasn’t just writing to the Christians but to Christians under heavy persecution from Nero. They were under a very oppressive government that was taking their lives because of their faith in Christ. And yet, when Peter talks about getting rid of things, he isn’t referring to Nero and his government but getting rid of stuff within each of us individually. This is so revealing of our society today. We want to rid our society of liberals or conservatives. Whatever side of the political aisle you sit on matters not, according to 1 Peter. For us today, Peter is sending a message to all of the church:&nbsp;me before DC. While people are trying to get rid of politicians, we have forgotten to deal with ourselves. If Peter were alive today and living in America, he’d say, “You want to know corruption? Try living under Nero.” Here is what Peter said in the midst of his horrible and dangerous first-century political landscape: Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:1-3, NIV) The first word of chapter 2 is,&nbsp;therefore. Whenever we see “therefore,” we need to ask, “What is it there for?” It should always make us go backward in Scripture. If you look at 1 Peter, chapters 2, 4, and 5 all begin with “therefore.” We can’t read the first verse of these chapters without the context of what came before it. For 2:1 to make sense, we have to read 1:17-25. The person “ridding themselves” here is a Christian, not a non-Christian trying to become a Christian. Listen closely: You don’t get rid of stuff to become a Christian. You get rid of stuff after you are a Christian. Once you become a Christian, you can’t stay the same, as there must be growth. In&nbsp;God in the Dock, C. S. Lewis was asked, “Are there any unmistakable outward signs in a person surrendered to God?” Lewis's response was epic. He said, “Take the case of a sour old maid, who is a Christian, but cantankerous. On the other hand, take some pleasant and popular fellow, but who has never been to church. Who knows how much more cantankerous the old maid might be if she were&nbsp;not&nbsp;a Christian, and how much more likable the nice fellow might be if he&nbsp;were&nbsp;a Christian?” Christianity is growth, not perfection. I don’t become a Christian and become perfect. I become a Christian and start growing. I remember having a conversation with a Muslim husband whose wife just became a Christian, and she was attending our church. He came to see me and was telling me that she was not a real Christian because she still had specific hang-ups