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Luke 40:47

Taking God at His Word

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 8, 2025

When Jesus was crucified, Next to him were two thieves: a good thief and a bad thief. The good thief had a request, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” which was granted. Jesus said, “This day, you will be with me in paradise.” The most noticeable feature of Jesus’ response is “this day.” It’s hard to believe the concept of purgatory that I was taught as a child. The word “purgatory” comes from a Latin term that means “to purge.” Purgatory, according to Catholicism, is a place of purification for those who are not bad enough to go to Hell but not good enough to go to Heaven. So one spends a duration of time in Purgatory, and then finally, he can go to Heaven. How long it takes in purgatory to purge away our sins before we are acceptable for heaven differs for everyone. Time in Purgatory can be shortened by prayers, by good works, by attending Mass, by penance, and by the purchasing of indulgences. Jesus’ words in the bible, like these to the dying thief, must be twisted all out of context to allow for the doctrine of purgatory. Even “The New Catholic Encyclopedia” frankly acknowledges that “the doctrine of purgatory is not explicitly stated in the Bible.” It’s not even implied, in my opinion.

When we leave this world, believers go immediately to be in the presence of Christ. I don’t believe the Bible supports “soul sleep” or any kind of intermediate waiting place. Paul wrote the Philippians about his struggle with wanting to live or die and concluded that, in the end, his desire was to “depart and be with Christ.” Further, Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said, “absent from the body means to be present with the Lord.” More importantly, Jesus’ words were spoken to this dying thief with an emphasis on “today.” To counter that promise with the prediction of more pain and suffering in the world to come for who knows how long before we get to be with Jesus is to destroy the comfort and assurance God’s word was meant to give us. Further, when Jesus said he would go and prepare a place for us, his words made it clear that it was something he was looking forward to also. He even said he would not drink of the wine cup of fellowship until he drinks it with us in heaven, meaning how important the time of his reunion with every believer. No, when Jesus said “today,” he meant immediately. I believe in His promise to me!

One dying believer wrote his family this letter: When I die, if my family wishes to inscribe anything on my gravestone, I would like it to be the promise of Jesus Christ in Hebrews 13:5; “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” For in due season, springtime will arrive…Then, when the resurrection sings itself in the robin’s glad song, and bursting buds defy the death grip of winter, and you walk upon the yielding earth near my grave—remember that my soul is not there, but rather it is absent from the body, present with the Lord. And somewhere, the atoms that make up my brain, my heart, and my body will be sending out resurrection radiations of a frequency too high for any earthly Geiger counter to record. But if you place the meter of God’s Word alongside that cemetery plot and adjust the settings to Hebrews 13:5, you will receive this reading: “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

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Hosea 6:6

Knowing God

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 7, 2025

From the Bible, we learn that there are lots of things that God wants. A believer should be what God wants him to be, do what God wants him to do, say what God wants him to say, sense what God wants him to sense, and share what God wants him to share. Spiritual maturity, doing what God wants, involves every aspect of life. But all of those issues are summed up for us in the greatest commandment. You do not need me to quote it to you. You know it well. It is simply to love God with all that we are and have and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus taught us, in essence, all the other instructions, directions, laws, and teachings of the bible are subject to this one great command to love.

Love, as expressed at the horizontal level, and love for each other are Jesus’ favorite topics. He repeated it often. In John 13:34, as he was preparing to leave his followers, he said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Love for one another is also a favorite subject of the Apostle Paul. He recognized and clearly asserted that the teaching about loving one another is not a man-made directive. He writes to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 4:9), “Now concerning brotherly love you do not need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.” Peter also teaches us this truth. He writes (1 Peter 1:22), “Love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” The Apostle John says it also. In his 2 letter, verse 5, he writes, “And now I ask you…not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another.”

But it all begins with God’s love. He first expressed his great love for us on the cross of Calvary. When we come to grips with how much God loves us and how much we truly matter to him, we then can fulfill the first part of the greatest commandment to love him with all that we have. We must receive God’s love in order to be able to return God’s love. Another term for returning God’s love is called “worship.” It’s interesting to me that we can perform all kinds of good deeds and yet still fall short. Jesus spoke of those who called him Lord but never knew them. Paul tells Timothy, referring to the religious opposition, that “some of these people have missed the most important thing in life – they don’t know God.” (1 Timothy 6:21). Knowing God is to love God. Hosea puts those two ideas in perspective in Hosea 6:6. As God’s prophet, he speaks for God and says, “I don’t want your sacrifices – I want your love; I don’t want your offerings – I want you to know me.” Jeremiah lays out this fact clearly in Jeremiah 9:23. He says, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he …knows me, that I am the LORD…” Jeremiah 9:23

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1 Thessalonians 5:18

Worship is saying “Thank You.”

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 6, 2025

There is more to worship than saying “Thank you” to God,  but that is surely a part of it. The great songwriter David includes thanksgiving in many of his songs. Psalm 138 begins, “I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart, before the gods I sing your praise.” I think that the gods (little “g”) refer to great people who are revered or worshipped by others inappropriately. David says that he will not be intimidated by any so-called “gods,” and even as they watch, he will sing his songs of thanks to the one true God. He vows not to let the pressure from others detract from his display of faith in the one true God.

Saying “thank you to God” for my life is fairly easy most of the time. I have good health. I have a great woman who loves me, two great sons, and three great-grandsons to share my life with; I have the privilege of being relatively healthy and retired. Nobody owns a piece of my time, and I don’t have any deeds to do or promises to keep. I’m as free as the breeze, and I go where I please and do what I want. I like being retired. It took a couple of years, but I’m finally truly enjoying it. Also, I have a world filled with wonder and beauty to enjoy. I sometimes feel guilty when I see those who suffer in various ways. When the tornadoes came through eastern Nebraska last year, they destroyed a neighborhood just a couple miles from my home in Omaha, but my trees didn’t even lose a leaf. I know those who have been diagnosed with cancer, those suffering through a painful divorce, those who have lost jobs, those who have lost loved ones, and those who have overwhelming handicaps to face every day. I’ve had loss. But my losses are just part of life. My father died at 64. I miss him. My sister died at 48. I miss her. My mother died at 72, and I miss her. But mostly, my losses are simply a part of life that everyone will experience sooner or later. But others suffer above and beyond what is normal in life. Some people intimately know the experiences of Job. I wonder how thankful I would be if I had the hardships that others around me have.

Paul was a man who suffered much. If you read an ancient description of Paul, you get the image of a man who doesn’t have a lot to be thankful for. It says, “he was a man of middling size, and his hair was scanty, and his legs were a little crooked, and his knees were projecting, and he had large eyes, and his eyebrows met, and his nose was somewhat long…” When you consider Paul’s life; beaten with 39 lashes 3 times, stoned and left for dead, perjured against, shipwrecked, etc… you don’t really see a man who should have a lot to be thankful for. But the ancient description of Paul goes on to say, “… and he was full of grace and mercy; at one time he seemed like a man, and at another time his face seemed to shine like an angel.” He wrote to us in 2 Corinthians about God’s challenge to let our light “shine out of the darkness, because God’s light has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:6). It’s clear that the “darkness” Paul is talking about is the suffering we endure in life. He goes on in the same passage to say in verse 8, We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…” To praise God by thanking Him in all our suffering and pain is truly a worship that is “acceptable and well-pleasing to God.” Paul tells the Thessalonians “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

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Psalm 42:1

What I Need Most

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 5, 2025

What God wants most is that we should love him with our whole hearts, souls, minds, and resources. That’s what worship is all about. Worship is all about the greatness of God. To express our praise of God’s glory is one of the primary forms of worship. The psalmist gives us plenty of examples of this, but none better expressed than Psalm 145, verse 3. He sings, “You are wonderful, Lord, and you deserve all praise because you are much greater than anyone can understand.” It’s far beyond our understanding, yet the deepest need in our lives is to somehow grasp it. I would argue that we are mostly unaware of it, but what we need most and what we are most starved for is a view of the awesome God who created the universe and sustains our lives. But more also, we thirst for communion, a relationship, with this God.

Sufferings may often help us see God better. Job endures the ultimate of life sufferings. I doubt if anyone has ever suffered as much. In it all, he acknowledged God’s power. “Although YOU slay me, yet will I trust you,” he says to God. “Naked came I into the world, and naked from it, I will go.” “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” The sovereignty of God becomes the theme of his words as he speaks to his friends and addresses God. In so many words, he praises the grandeur of God’s power, the God who hangs the world on nothing, who controls the seas, the moon, the stars, and all their movements. (See Job Chapter 26). In the midst of a life of confusing pain and suffering, what we hunger for most is a glimpse of God.

I’ve heard it said that when we get so heavenly-minded, we’re of no earthly good. Some have said that praising God, singing and praying, and other acts of corporate worship especially do nothing for them. The Greatness of God and the expression of our appreciation of it is relevant to everything in life. When we sing praises to God, even when we don’t feel like it, our love and appreciation for Him grows. When we focus our attention on God, we expand our vision. We can see life not in terms of what I can do but in terms of what He can do. Worship dispels my fears. When I worship God, I forget those things that gnaw away at me in my day-to-day life. Worship gives me energy for my work. The truth is that when I’m the most heavenly-minded, I do the most earthly good. Worship dissolves my worries. When I put God first, He seems to take care of the rest. Worship refreshes my spirit. When I wake up with heaviness, all I have to do is look at the grandeur of God, and my spirit is lifted. Satan is defeated when he sees us praising and worshipping God. Worship is one of the greatest weapons of spiritual warfare. Finally, let me say that worship prepares us for heaven. It’s our drawing near to God on earth, the result of which is His drawing near to us in heaven. The deepest need in our human heart is to know God and love him. Jesus said (my translation), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one will ever find God unless he does so through me.” Let the one who is thirsty, Jesus said, come to me and drink! The Psalmist said in Psalm 42:1, “As the deer thirsts for water, so my soul thirsts for God.” Psalm 42:1

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Psalm 105:4, 2 Chronicles 20:6

Great is the Lord!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 4, 2025

Prayer is a form of true worship. It’s to look to God as the provider and sustainer of my life. It’s to acknowledge my dependency on Him and a true need for Him. David wrote in Psalm 70:5, “But I am poor and needy. God, come quickly to me. You are the One who helps me and saves me. LORD, please don’t wait any longer.” Then again, we read how the songwriter even sings His prayer to God in Psalm 109:26, “Please help me, LORD God! Come and save me because of your love.” King Jehoshaphat was under attack by a three-kingdom coalition. He was greatly outmanned, outnumbered, and under-equipped. So, what did he do? In 2 Chronicles 20:3-4, we read, “Jehoshaphat was afraid, so he decided to ask the Lord what to do. The entire country of Judah united in seeking God’s help — they came from all the cities to pray to God.” This is true worship, and the Psalmist in Psalm 105:4 puts that together for us clearly when he says, “Go to the Lord for help and worship Him continually.”

When my second grandson was four years old, he learned how to pray. I was convinced at the time that he was going to become a preacher because he didn’t know when to stop. He begins with God bless Bob. (Bob is their tom cat) and goes on, with God bless Mommy, God bless Daddy, God bless Grandma & Papa, etc. Then he moves into the thank you phase of his prayer, and there’s no limiting the items he’s thankful for! It’s a real joy to hear him pray. He kept his head bowed and his hands folded and just kept going. Although I enjoyed his prayers, I felt the need at the time to teach him that prayer should include more than just asking God for His blessings on our lives and thanking him for all He’s done for us. When I look at my own prayer life now, though, I find the same problem. I ask for blessings on people and thank God for all He’s done for us.

Prayer is an approach to God. Habakkuk offered one of the most effective prayers in the Bible, and one of the most important aspects of His prayer was adoration. He writes, “LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.” Worship is acknowledging God’s true worth, his “worth-ship.” It is by reviewing his greatness for our own benefit that we might renew our mental image of Him. I often have difficulty with this aspect of worshipful prayer. The late James Boice recommends an acrostic to help us remember the worshipful aspects of our prayer life. It’s A C T S. A is for adoration. C is for confession. T is for Thanksgiving, and S is for supplication. He suggests, “In this acrostic, adoration rightly comes first and should dominate any normal prayer, with each of the other items (particularly the last) taking progressively less time. But what often happens is quite different. We rush through the first part of our prayer (“Oh, Lord, we thank you that you are a wonderful God and that you sent Jesus to die for us …”) but then settle down on the requests (“Lord, here are sixteen things I want from you”).” Habakkuk prayer begins with adoration, and I expect ours should also. That might even change what we pray for. If we focus on God’s greatness first, our requests might change. It may help us align our requests with His will. God would say “YES” to all our prayers that way. In 2 Chronicles 20:6, we read another prayer, “You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in Your hand, and no one can withstand You!” 2 Chronicles 20:6

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2 Chronicles 20:15

Raising the Dead

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 3, 2025

During my many years of preaching, I made a point of pointing out our mortality at the beginning of every year. I would say that some of you here today won’t finish the year on earth. That goes for me, also. I might not be here at the end of the year. I would then mention those who had passed away in the previous year. This might sound morbid, but it reminded me of my mortality. If the preacher has any responsibility, it is to remind people of their mortality. That’s why pastors always officiate at funerals. It should lead us to worship God. When we humble ourselves before the Lord, we worship him. We acknowledge our dependence on Him, and He looks favorably on us. “God resists the proud but gives grace (favor) to the humble.” It begins with our declaration of dependence and ends with God’s deliverance. That was Jehoshaphat’s experience in “The Valley of Decision.” This is where he and the entire nation humbled themselves before God in the face of three advancing armies. They expressed their helplessness and their desperate need for God. And God answered them. In 2 Chronicles 20:15, we read, “This is what the Lord says to you: Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s!”

Jehoshaphat was under attack and looked to the Lord. Joshua, on the other hand, was doing the attacking. In either situation, the solution is to worship God. Joshua was on the brink of his first battle against an impregnable fortress city named Jericho. The adventure was getting to be too much for him, and he was up all night. That’s when he met the captain of the Lord’s army. They had an exchange that resulted in Joshua’s worship. In Joshua 5, 13-15, we read all about it: “When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, worshiped, and said to him, What does my lord say to his servant? And the commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so.” I need not tell you about the victory that God gave to both Jehoshaphat and Joshua! They were both miraculous, and they were both total.

When we are under attack, when we are advancing against the enemy, the most important step we can take is to worship. That’s holy ground. When we come before the Lord and declare our dependence, acknowledge our weakness and His might and power, we are indeed on holy ground. That’s when we need a miracle. When we come to the “dead end” of ourselves, God is ready to do what God is best at. No human institution, academic, economic, technological, or cinematic, can solve our problems. Religion won’t solve the problem either. Religion won’t meet our needs. Max Lucado said it well, “We don’t need more religion; we need a miracle. We don’t need someone to disguise the dead; we need someone to raise the dead.” There’s only one place to turn. John tells us in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

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2 Chronicles 20:12-13

Declaration of Dependence

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 2, 2025

There are three passages in scripture (Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6, and 1 Peter 5:5) that say, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” That means that those who don’t need God, who have it all together, who are able to do it all on their own, are not looked upon favorably by God. Grace is sometimes translated with the word “favor.” God loves to see His children dependent on him. Really, if we get to the point that we feel that way, we really aren’t doing much. When we step out in faith to do something significant, we truly learn how dependent we are on God’s favor. Sometimes, when we feel we don’t need God, He will bring a trial, contest, or conflict into our lives that will prove again how much we need him. It’s always better to tackle big things, have dreams, go for the gold, and learn how much we need God on the way than to seek the quiet, reserved, cautious life of trying to make all things comfortable. God cares so much more for our character than our comfort. I have always loved the line Bilbo Baggins gave Gandalf when he was challenged to embark on a great adventure-filled mission. He said, “Oh no, no, no! Adventures make one late for dinner.”

In the middle of life’s adventures, we encounter our need for God firsthand. It’s not until we truly learn that we can’t do it ourselves. We do not know it all. We cannot manage our lives as neatly as we might want to, and we surely can’t make the world around us bend to our wishes, even when it’s for good. God wants us at that point in our lives because it’s there that we truly learn how to draw near to God: That is worship! And it’s at those times God will draw near to us as well. During the course of the coming year, we will all live our lives. We will face challenges, even if we don’t want to. We will face hardships and sometimes have to deal with major losses in our lives. There is no escaping it. Worship is the only long-term solution.

When the three armies surrounding Judah mustered their forces against the meager army of Jehoshaphat, that’s when he was brought low before the Lord in worship. He knew that he stood no chance against the advanced, well-trained, well-equipped armies that mustered at the borders of his country. He fell on his knees and said in 2 Chronicles 20:12, “We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We don’t know what to do…” Here is the situation that God brought about to bring Jehoshaphat and his people to worship God. It worked. The next words out of his mouth are in 2 Chronicles 20:12b-13. He says, “We don’t know what to do, BUT we are looking to you (God) for help. All the men of Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, wives, and children.” Whether you have embarked on a great adventure or are facing a seemingly immovable obstacle, humble yourself before the Lord. Worship is the answer. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

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Psalm 101:1-8, Various

Christ Crucified

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
January 1, 2025

David’s Psalm 101 is only eight verses long. It sounds very much to me like a collection of resolutions that David intends to live in the future. We might think of them as New Year Resolutions.  “I will” introduces these resolutions.  First of all, in verse 1, he resolves to “sing of God’s steadfast love and justice.” In verse 2, pledges to “ponder the way that is blameless.” In verse 3 he expresses his determination to “walk with integrity of heart.” In verse three, David tells us what he will not do. He says, “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.” Then, in verse 4, he says, “A perverse heart shall be far from me.” Then, in verse five, he pledges to take the side of innocent victims when he says, “Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy.” He adds, “Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure.” On the other hand, verse six contains the resolution to “Look with favor on the faithful in the land.” He promises to have only righteous advisors. He says only “he who walks in the way that is blameless shall minister to me.” He will rid his cabinet of liars in verse seven, “No one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes.” In verse eight, he makes a solemn resolution as the King of God’s people. He says, “Morning by morning, I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all the evildoers from the city of the Lord.”

David is not the only one in the Bible to make resolutions. We see that Daniel, a slave in Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, resolved “not to defile himself with the King’s food.” Joshua had resolved that he and his whole household would serve the Lord in contrast to those who bellied up to the gods of the Canaanites. One of my favorite Old Testament resolutions is found in the words of Ezra. In Chapter Seven and verse 10, he says that he has set his heart (resolved) to study the Law of the Lord, to practice it in his own life, and to teach it to all Israel.  If we look at the New Testament, we see that the writer of 13 of the books of the New Testament made a resolution to know nothing but “Christ Crucified.”

The idea of a resolution seems to be that we will focus our lives on something that matters most to us. In the culture we face, I’d argue with Brian Chapell, that Paul’s resolution should be ours. He says, “While the warring factions may not agree with each other’s values, all concur we are living through a cultural war on every front: arts, politics, law, business, medicine, education, and touching every area of our lives: family, gender, sexuality, race, ethics, personal responsibility, the sanctity of life. To guard against the temptation to pursue change through human power, we need to ask, in light of Scripture, What will really make a difference in the cause of Christ? Biblical answers become clear only as we clarify the nature of our mission, promoting the glory of God in the person of his Son, by the Spirit and Christ’s mandate – making known nothing but Christ crucified.”[1]

[1] Chapell, Bryan. “Prelude to Revival: A Christian Response to Culture Wars.” Reformation and Revival Journal 1994, Vol. 3 (3), pp: 35–59. ISSN: 1071–7277[1]

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