Western Hills Christian Church: “You are family here!”

Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness,and sin is lawlessness.
1st John 3:4

It is a dangerous thing to live your life without a spiritual "plum line," or standard, by which you determine right from wrong.  God’s Word is that plumb line.  Spiritual laws, like physical laws, are meant to protect you, not restrict you.  You may exercise your freedom to challenge the laws of electricity, but to do so can bring you death.   Likewise, you will not break God’s laws, they will break you.  God established absolute moral and spiritual laws that we are free to ignore, but we do so at our own peril.  These laws are timeless.  Culture does not supersede them.  Circumstances do not abrogate them.  God’s laws are eternal, and they will save you from death if you follow them.

You may feel that God’s laws restrict and bind you.  On the contrary, God’s Word protects you from death (Romans 6:23).  For example, when God said that you are not to commit adultery, He wanted to free you to experience the fullest pleasure of a marriage relationship.  Furthermore, He knew the devastating heartache that would come to you, your spouse, your children, your relatives, your friends, and your church family if you broke this law.  How important the laws of God are for your life!  Without them, you would be robbed of the delights God has in store for you.

Sin is choosing a standard other than God’s law on which to base your life.  If you are measuring your life by that of your neighbors, or society at large, then you are basing your life on lawlessness, and lawlessness is sin.

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day

The Father Draws You

He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
John 6:65

Throughout Jesus’ ministry on earth, He never seemed intimidated by the crowds.  Instead, He looked into the multitudes and focused on those whom His Father was sending to Him.  Jesus knew that because of sin, no one naturally seeks after God.  Sinful man’s inclination is to hide from God, rather than to come to Him (Genesis 3:8; Psalm 14:1-3).  Therefore, whenever Jesus saw that the Father was drawing a person to Himself, Jesus immediately began relating to that person.

Jesus observed the great lengths to which the despised tax collector, Zacchaeus, had gone in order to see Him pass by.  In response, Jesus immediately left the crowd and spent time with this man in whom the Father was obviously working (Luke 19:1-10).  When Jesus noticed a man following after Him, Jesus spoke to Andrew, “Come!” (John 1:39).  Every time the disciples experienced a new insight into the truths of God, Jesus recognized that it was the Father who had been at work in their lives (Matthew 16:17).

As your desire to spend time alone with Jesus, recognize that this is the Father drawing you to His Son.  You do not seek quiet times with God in order to experience Him.  The fact that He has brought you to a place of fellowship with Him is evidence that you are already sensing His activity.  As you read the Scriptures and pray, trust that God will honor your response to His leading by teaching you more about Himself.

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day

Your people shall be volunteers In the day of Your power.
Psalm 110:3

One mark of revival, during which God comes to His people in power, is that God’s people are compelled to offer their lives for His service. Many churches lack people who are willing to get involved in carrying out God’s redemptive work. The mission fields are crying out for Christians to go and share the gospel with those who’ve never heard it. What we need is not more pleas for volunteers, but an outpouring of the power of God. When God comes among His people in power, there is never a shortage of volunteers or resources for His work!

When Christians today are asked what aspects of the Christian life are most important to them, missions is not usually ranked as a priority. This is because we have lost track of why God called us in the first place. We were not saved from our sin simply so that we would qualify for heaven. God delivered us so we would have a relationship with Him through which He could carry out His mission to redeem a lost world.

Only the power of God can free us from our natural self-centeredness and reorient us toward the mission of God. There is no need to pray that God would come in power. That is the only way He ever comes. We need hearts that are so responsive to Him that He will choose to demonstrate His power through us. Is your heart so filled with love for God that you are watching for the first opportunity to say with Isaiah, “Here am I. Send me!”?

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day

The Certainty of Judgment

"If the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"
Hebrews 2:2-3

Today the majority believes that God is a God of love and grace, but not of justice. One brief look at Hebrews 2:2-3 ought to convince anyone otherwise. The writer’s point is this: Since the Old Testament makes it clear that transgression and disobedience met with severe and just punishment, how much more so will equal or greater punishment be rendered under the New Testament, which was revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself?

Both the Old and New Testaments confirm that angels were instrumental in bringing the law (Deuteronomy 33:2; Acts 7:38). The law the angels spoke, primarily the Ten Commandments, was steadfast. That meant if someone broke the law, the law would break the lawbreaker. The law was inviolable; punishment for breaking it was certain.

"Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense" (v. 2). Transgression refers to stepping across a line–a willful, purposeful sin. Disobedience, however, refers to imperfect hearing–the sin of shutting one’s ears to the commands, warnings, and invitations of God. It is a sin of neglect or omission, doing nothing when something should be done.

Hebrews 2:2 also puts to rest the notion that God is not fair. The writer says every sin received a "just recompense." God, by His very nature, is just. Every punishment He meted out to those who defied Him was a deterrent to the sin He wanted to stop.

God severely punished the nation of Israel because they knew better. That leads to the important principle that punishment is always related to how much truth one knows but rejects. The person who knows the gospel, who has intellectually understood it and believed it, yet drifts away will experience the severest punishment of all.

Suggestion for Prayer:
Ask God to give you an even greater appreciation of the punishment He has saved you from to motivate you to pursue the lost more vigorously.

For Further Study:
Read Matthew 11:20-24, 12:38-42, and Luke 12:47-48 to discover Christ’s attitude toward those who know the truth yet rebel against it.

From Drawing Near by John MacArthur Copyright © 1993. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.