Christian Relationships

by Don Merritt

Colossians 3:18-4:1

In this section, Paul gives insight to how Christians should behave in the major personal relationships of daily life.  In 3:18-19, he speaks of husbands and wives, in 3:20-21 he speaks of parents and children, and from 3:22-4:1, masters and slaves, or today we would say employers and employees.  If you think about it, we spend most of our waking lives in one of these relationships, at least most of us do.

We can easily sum up all of these relationships by saying that in each, we are to put others ahead of ourselves. This is certainly true in Paul’s instructions to husbands and wives, even though he uses language in verse 18 that isn’t modern.  That wives should put their husbands first may not sound contemporary, but husbands are also to put their wives first.  This might be a little clearer in the parallel passage in Ephesians 5:22-33.

The same thing is true of the relationship between parents and children.  Both are to put the other first, giving honor where honor is due and giving love and nurture where they are due.  In the case of master and slave, or employer and employees, we have again the idea that both are to consider the other, with workers doing their very best always “as working for the Lord” and the boss is told to always do what is fair and right “because you know that you have a Master in heaven.”

Read on: https://lifereference.wordpress.com/2021/05/05/christian-relationships-4/

How to Walk Wisely

Ephesians 5:1-17

Do as God would do. Much-loved children want to do as their fathers do. ² Live with love as Christ loved you. He gave Himself for us, a gift on the altar to God which was as a sweet smell to God. ³ Do not let sex sins or anything sinful be even talked about among those who belong to Christ. Do not always want everything. ⁴ Do not be guilty of telling bad stories and of foolish talk. These things are not for you to do. Instead, you are to give thanks for what God has done for you. ⁵ Be sure of this! No person who does sex sins or who is not pure will have any part in the kingdom of Christ and of God. The same is true for the person who always wants what other people have. This becomes a god to him. ⁶ Do not let anyone lead you in the wrong way with foolish talk. The anger of God comes on such people because they choose to not obey Him. ⁷ Have nothing to do with them. ⁸ At one time you lived in darkness. Now you are living in the light that comes from the Lord. Live as children who have the light of the Lord in them. ⁹ This light gives us truth. It makes us right with God and makes us good. ¹⁰ Learn how to please the Lord. ¹¹ Have nothing to do with the bad things done in darkness. Instead, show that these things are wrong. ¹² It is a shame even to talk about these things done in secret. ¹³ All things can be seen when they are in the light. Everything that can be seen is in the light. ¹⁴ The scriptures say, “Wake up, you who are sleeping. Rise from the dead and Christ will give you light.” ¹⁵ So be careful how you live. Live as men who are wise and not foolish. ¹⁶ Make the best use of your time. These are sinful days. ¹⁷ Do not be foolish. Understand what the Lord wants you to do.

Godly wisdom enables us to view things as the Lord does and to respond according to biblical principles. This discernment isn’t automatic, but it is available to all believers who “try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:10; If you do not have wisdom, ask God for it. He is always ready to give it to you and will never say you are wrong for asking. James 1:5). And the best way to know what pleases God is to read His Word.

When we resolve to honor the Lord in all we do, say, and think, it transforms the way we make decisions. Instead of following natural instincts or sinful impulses, we’ll seek God’s viewpoint in a given situation. And when we want to know what He says about certain topics, Scripture will become our first resource, rather than our friends or the media.

With so many voices clamoring for us to follow worldly paths, we can’t afford to be careless in how we live. We can either walk in the world’s darkness or God’s light. The first option leads to foolishness, but the other is the way to goodness, righteousness, and truth.

Pleasing the Lord and conforming to His likeness are always the best choice. Ask for wisdom today, and God will guide you to live as children of light (Eph. 5:8).

My Faith Is Not a Wish

by raymcdonald

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Have you ever wished for something? Maybe a new red bike for Christmas. Maybe a new Barbie doll. Maybe a G.I. Joe action figure. How about a Mattel Thingmaker or Creepy Crawlers set (pretty dangerous toys […]

Read more of this post

Job

A Broadcast with R.C. Sproul

Even in the midst of devastating trials, Job trusted in the Lord. Today, R.C. Sproul contemplates how the life of Job teaches us to cling to the sovereignty of God when we endure suffering.

LISTEN NOW

Faith Is Action

Hebrews 11:7-16

⁷ Because Noah had faith, he built a large boat for his family. God told him what was going to happen. His faith made him hear God speak and he obeyed. His family was saved from death because he built the boat. In this way, Noah showed the world how sinful it was. Noah became right with God because of his faith in God.

⁸ Because Abraham had faith, he obeyed God when God called him to leave his home. He was to go to another country that God promised to give him. He left his home without knowing where he was going. ⁹ His faith in God kept him living as a stranger in the country God had promised to him. Isaac and Jacob had received the same promise. They all lived in tents together. ¹⁰ Abraham was looking to God and waiting for a city that could not be moved. It was a city planned and built by God.

¹¹ Because Sarah had faith, she was able to have a child long after she was past the age to have children. She had faith to believe that God would do what He promised. ¹² Abraham was too old to have children. But from this one man came a family with as many in it as the stars in the sky and as many as the sand by the sea.

¹³ These people all died having faith in God. They did not receive what God had promised to them. But they could see far ahead to all the things God promised and they were glad for them. They knew they were strangers here. This earth was not their home. ¹⁴ People who say these things show they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵ They did not think about the country they had come from. If they had, they might have gone back. ¹⁶ But they wanted a better country. And so God is not ashamed to be called their God. He has made a city for them.

Faith is often thought of as a thing we have—a belief in something or someone. But in the Scriptures, faith is more than a passive possession—it’s a firm confidence that results in action. In today’s passage, an action follows every mention of faith. Noah prepared an ark, Abraham obeyed without knowing where he was going, and Sarah confidently anticipated the son God promised.

Instead of sitting back, believers should count on God’s promises and act accordingly, as did the men and women listed in Hebrews 11. The Lord accomplished amazing feats through their lives when they believed Him and moved out in obedience. Like a muscle, faith grows the more we put it into action. In this way, believers strengthen their trust in God and His promises, even when they don’t live long enough to see the fulfillment in their lifetime.

Are you acting on your faith in God and His Word? When you see a command or warning in Scripture, do you obey it? Are you letting biblical truths about God’s character and power shape your thinking and responses? If so, your faith is growing strong.

Unity in Christ

by Don Merritt

Colossians 3: 5-14

In the last section, we saw Paul tell us how to live our new lives, by setting our hearts and minds on the things that are above, and not on the things of this world.  In this section, he expands on this theme by listing items which are of the old life, and certain items that are of the new life in Christ.  In verses 5-10a we get a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we are to “put to death” in our lives; these are all from our “old selves” and they include… sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed which is idolatry. He says we must rid ourselves of things like anger, rage, malice, slander, lies and filthy language. I’m quite sure that there is no need for me to elaborate on these things, other than to say that when our attention is drawn to any of them, it’s time to set our minds on higher things.

Verses 10 and 11 move in transition to the next part by pointing out that we are to move away from those old practices into a new way of living where there is no Jew, no Greek, nor circumcised or uncircumcised… and no other social or ethnic distinctions: only Christ. Verse 12 provides a summing up and conclusion in an interesting way:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Continue: https://lifereference.wordpress.com/2021/05/04/unity-in-christ-4/

Be Merciful

When George H. W. Bush was Vice President, he was sent to represent the United Sates at the funeral of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

According to Gary Thomas who related the story in Christianity Today, Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow

Mrs. Brezhnev’s stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev’s wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest.

“There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power,” Thomas observed, “the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.”

Mercy is a universal desire felt by all people. Both religious and non-religious. It is a frequent theme of the Psalmist as found in today’s Bible reading, Psalms 56 and 57. Mercy is mentioned 118 times in this collection. 10 times the Psalmist pleads with the Lord with the simple request, “Be merciful to me.”

Read on at: https://thepreachersword.com/2021/05/04/be-merciful/#more-19322

Triumph!

by Don Merritt

When you were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Colossians 2:13-15

As we pick up from the last passage, we see right away the connection we discovered. Notice the link between “dead in your sins” and “uncircumcision.”  Here they are used interchangeably, and since they are used this way, we can be certain, as we were last time, that circumcision here is not the literal procedure done in physical terms.  While we were in our sins then, God made us alive in Christ and forgave our sins.   So far, this is easy to understand, and wonderful to behold, full as it is with the love and mercy of a loving Father in heaven.  It gets even better…

God cancelled the “written code” with its “regulations” that were “against us.”  So not only have our sins been forgiven, not only have we been made alive in Christ, but the Law that condemned us has been ended; from now on it’s all about Christ!

read more: https://lifereference.wordpress.com/2021/04/30/triumph-4/

What Will Heaven REALLY Be Like? Find Out In This Jam-Packed Video

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NrU8ReSEBs

How can we learn contentment?

(J.R. Miller, “The Hidden Life” 1895)  LISTEN to audio!  Download audio

“I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” Philippians 4:11

How can we learn contentment? 

One step toward contentment, is patient submission to unavoidable ills and hardships. No earthly lot is perfect. No mortal ever yet in this world, has found a set of circumstances without some drawback. There are . . .
trials which we cannot change into blessings,
burdens which we cannot lay down,
crosses which we must continue to carry,
thorns in the flesh which must remain with their rankling pain.
When we have such trials, why should we not sweetly accept them as part of God’s best way with us?

Discontent never made . . .
a rough path smoother,
a heavy burden lighter,
a bitter cup less bitter,
a dark way brighter,
a sore sorrow less sore.
It only makes matters worse!

One who accepts with patience, that which he cannot change–has learned one secret of victorious living.

Another part of the lesson, is that we can learn to moderate our desires. “Having food and clothing,” says Paul again, “let us be content with these.” Very much of our discontent arises from envy of those who seem to be more favored than ourselves. Many people lose most of the comfort out of their own lot–in coveting the finer, more luxurious things which some neighbor has. Yet if they knew the whole story of the life they envy for its greater prosperity, they probably would not exchange for it their own lowlier life with its more humble circumstances. Or if they could make the exchange, it is not likely they would find half so much real happiness in the other position, as they would have enjoyed in their own.

Contentment does not dwell so often in palaces–as in the homes of the humble. The tall peaks rise higher and are more conspicuous–but the winds smite them more fiercely than they do the quiet valleys. And surely, the lot in life which God makes for us, is always the best which could be made for us for the time. He knows better than we do, what our true needs are.

The real cause of our discontent is not in our circumstances; if it were, a change of circumstances might cure it. It is in ourselves, and wherever we go–we shall carry our discontent heart with us. The only cure which will affect anything, must be the curing of the fever of discontent in us.

A fine secret of contentment, lies in finding and extracting all the pleasure we can get from the things we have–the common, everyday things; while we enter upon no mad, vain chase after impossible dreams. In whatever state we are in, we may find therein enough for our needs.

No earthly misfortune can touch the wealth which a Christian holds in the divine promises and hopes. Just in the measure, therefore, in which we learn to live for spiritual and unseen eternal realities–do we find contentment amid earth’s trials and losses. If we would live to please God, to build up Christlike character in ourselves, and to lay up treasure in Heaven–we shall not depend for happiness, on the way things go with us here on earth, nor on the measure of temporal goods we have. The earthly desires are crowded out by the higher and spiritual desires. We can do without childhood’s toys–when we have manhood’s better possessions. We desire the toys of this world less, as we get more of God and Heaven into our hearts.

Paul knew this secret. He cheerfully gave up all that this world had for him. Money had no power over him. He knew how to live in plenty; but he did not fret when poverty came instead. He was content in any trial, because earth meant so little–and Christ meant so much to him. He did not need the things he did not have. He was not made poor by the things he lost. He was not vexed by the sufferings he had to endure–because the sources of his life were in Heaven and could not be touched by earthly experiences of pain or loss.

These are hints of the way we may learn to be content in whatever circumstances. Surely the lesson is worth learning! One year of sweet contentment, amid earth’s troublous scenes–is better than a whole lifetime of vexed, restless discontent! The lesson can be learned, too, by anyone who is truly Christ’s disciple; for did not the Master say, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you.”

The artist painted life as a dark, storm-swept sea, covered with wrecks. Then out of the midst of the wild waves, he made to rise a great rock, in a cleft of which, high up, amid herbage and flowers–he painted a dove sitting quietly on her nest. It is a picture of Christian peace in the midst of this world’s strifes and storms. In the cleft of the Rock, is the home of contentment.