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Romans 12:2

I Am Acceptable!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
April 10, 2025

Paul tells us that once a person comes to faith in Christ, they become “new” creatures. We remain ourselves, but there’s a brand-newness about our lives that is part of God’s supernatural movement in our lives. He doesn’t destroy our old selves in that we are re-created from scratch, the essential elements that makeup our true “selves” is still intact, he redesigns us so to speak. The “old things” that pass away are the old ways of doing things and the old ways of acting, and it begins with God renewing our old ways of thinking. That’s what he means when he writes to the Romans to “let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (See Romans 12:2). It begins with changing what we think about God and his son Jesus. That affects the way we think about ourselves. I guess you could call this our “self-image” is changed. We are no longer who we thought we were. We’re no longer who others think we are, and we’re not what we think others think we are. All the old tapes, for good or for bad, need to be erased, and we need to start listening to a new soundtrack.

God says that I’m acceptable! In Romans 15:7, we read, “God has accepted you.” 1 Peter 2:9, referring to a very similar theme, says, “You have been chosen by God.” You’re not on the sidelines waiting for your name to be called for a 3rd grade baseball game. Your name has already been called! Further, you have been “received.” In a world where many people feel “turned away” from the high life, God has not done so with us. The Psalmist writes, “Even if my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will receive me!” By the way, it’s not just passive acceptance of you, it’s eager joyous acceptance because “the free gift of God’s grace makes all of us right with God.” (See Romans 3:24). There are several wonderful, biblical truths about our acceptability with God. The righteousness of Christ becomes our righteousness (Romans 5:11-21). We are “justified” in God’s eyes, and looking through the eyes of love, he sees us as already “perfect” (which we’re not practically) (See 1 Cor 1:2, 30, and 6:11). He even calls all believers “saints.” It’s “Saint Chuck” writing to you! See also Hebrews 10:14. All our failures and sins have been buried into the deepest abyss of the seas… i.e., they are gone!

All of this is by God’s grace! That’s the way he thinks about us, and we must let our thinking be transformed from the old way to God’s way. It’s a work of God’s grace. We can’t change the way we think about ourselves by trying hard or working hard. We’ll only fail and end up more discouraged than we were. It’s all a matter of believing what God says about us! Paul says, “Now to a laborer, his wages are not counted as a favor or a gift, but as an obligation (something owed to him). But to one who, not working [by the Law], trusts (believes fully) in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness and makes him acceptable to God! (See the Amplified version of Romans 4:4-5)

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Isaiah 43:4

I Am Valuable!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
April 9, 2025

If you ever watched Tom Hanks in “The Terminal,” you have an idea of what it means to be “unacceptable.” He plays a citizen of Krocotia (A fictional place, I think) who has flown to New York on a personal mission, but when he checks into customs at JFK, he’s informed that civil war in his home country makes his passport invalid. To make the long story short, he ends up living in the terminal for 9 months while they attempt to straighten out the mess. Each day, he stands in line to have his application to enter New York approved, but each day, his paper is stamped as denied. The counter agent stamps his application form with a stamp in red that reads, “Unacceptable.” That happens day after day.  Having a red stamp on the application to enter New York identifies him as an undesirable person, not fit to enter the country.

If you’re like me, sometimes you feel like your application is stamped the same way: “Unacceptable.” It doesn’t take too much for us to feel like we don’t belong. But Paul, in Romans 15:7, tells us that “God has accepted” us. We are acceptable to him. But not only are we acceptable, we are valuable!

As we were cleaning out Kathy’s Mother’s apartment after her passing some time ago, we found an heirloom broach that came over from Austria with Kathy’s grandmother. It must date back before the turn of 1900. It’s not pure gold, silver, or any other precious material but appears to be plain plastic. But it’s a valuable item because it connects us to our heritage. Kathy cherished it, not because it was gold or silver but because of who’s it was.  It was valuable to Kathy, as we are valuable to God.

We are his prized possession. John, the beloved apostle, tells us in 1 John 4:4, “But you belong to God, my dear children.” The thing that makes us valuable is the fact that God loves us. It’s not because of anything natural in our character. It’s something about God’s character. Just as Israel was the object of God’s sovereign choice, so too is every believer today.

Moses explained this truth to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 7:6. He writes, “The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” Why did God make this choice? Moses continued, “The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you.” Just as there is nothing externally valuable about the broach, there is nothing externally valuable in us. What makes us so precious is not our intrinsic value. It is only the value placed on us by God’s love. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 7:23, “You have been bought and paid for by Christ, so you belong to Him.” God so loved us that he bought and paid for us with his most precious possession, His only begotten son. Isaiah 43:4 speaks to us as well as Israel; “God says, ‘You are precious to Me.’”

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Isaiah 54:10

Hypnotized By The World

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
April 8, 2025

Proverbs 23:7 in the King James and the New King James translation says that as a man “thinks in his heart, so is he.” This verse has been the subject of much debate by scholars, but I believe the truth is that we act out what we truly think “we are” at the deepest level. Hypnotists make a living by making their subjects act in a way inconsistent with who they really are. One Hypnotist applied his practice to four people at the same time on a stage in a crowded theatre. Each was “put under,” so to speak, and told they were a chicken, duck, dog, and cat. When he brought them out of their slumber, one clucked and scratched at the floor, one quacked and nodded his head up and down, one barked and chased a ball, and one meowed and rubbed against the hypnotist’s leg. The audience roared with laughter. When he brought them out of their state, they were all embarrassed at how they were told they behaved.

My point this morning is that Christians are often hypnotized by the world, the flesh, and the devil. We act out in ways that are truly inconsistent with who we really are. We are acceptable. Because of rejection from others in the world, we often act like we’re unacceptable. The truth is “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (See Ephesians 1:6) We are acceptable to God. We are also valuable. In 1 Corinthians, Paul focuses on that reality and tells us that we are bought and paid for by God. We are His prized possession. But because of mistreatment by the world and others around us, we often lose sight of our intrinsic value to God and act out in sinful ways. Isaiah 54:10 tells us that “the mountain and hills may crumble, but My Love for you will never end, so says the Lord who loves you.” The world, our flesh, and the arrows of Satan often cause us to doubt God’s love and concern for us, leaving us to search for love, as the song says, “in all the wrong places.” We have been hypnotized by the world, the flesh, and the devil in many ways.

Gary Smally and John Trent wrote, “We all desire relationships in which we are accepted, valued, and wanted. We desperately long for this esteem from our peers but seldom experience the “real thing.” Countless stories are written about teenagers who accept life-threatening dares in the hopes of being accepted by their peers or business people who compromise their integrity and ethics to join an elite inner circle. We read of men and women who are driven to succeed because they believe the lie that says their value is determined by the quality and level of their performance. …For the Christian, none of this futile struggle is necessary because we have been chosen by God before time ever began. We belong, we matter, we have been accepted. No longer outcasts or second-class citizens, we are part of his family.” You are acceptable! You are valuable! And you are lovable because God says so!

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Matthew 12:31, Isaiah 43:25

I Am Forgivable!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
April 7, 2025

Over the past 50 years as a believer in Jesus,  I’ve encountered people who have believed they have committed the “unforgivable sin.” If you were to ask people what the unforgivable sin was, you’d get a variety of answers. Some, however, don’t have any idea what it is but still worry that they may have committed it. Some say that it’s murder! Some say that it’s adultery. I once counseled a young person who thought masturbation was an unforgivable sin. Is it Blasphemy, as many suggest? Maybe it’s having an abortion. Is it getting a divorce? I’ve spent hours talking with people about the issue of unforgivable sins.

Jesus did, however, say that there was one sin that was unforgivable. We read in Mathew 12:31, “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men…” That’s the first part, and it might be good to think about that for a while. Jesus asserts that every sin mentioned above and every other sin you can think of can and will be forgiven by God. Isaiah 43:25 says, “I am the God who forgives your sins, and I do this because of who I am. I will not hold your sins against you.” The only exception is, as Jesus continues, “…but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” But what exactly does that mean? In the context of this verse, Jesus had just healed a man who was blind and mute. The Pharisees said that Jesus had expelled demons by the power of the prince of demons, Beelzebub. So their unforgivable sin is attributing Jesus’ miracle, which was performed in the power of the Holy Spirit, to Satan. The unforgivable sin is to call Jesus and his divine power satanic. But the key issue in this statement is that people who do this would never go to Jesus for forgiveness, as they are saying he is of the devil. So, their sins will never be forgiven by God.

I would argue that the one and only unforgivable sin is the sin of unbelief. Every other sin in the world can be forgiven. But if we fail to put our faith in God and what He accomplished for us on the cross of Calvary through the death of His son, Jesus Christ, we have no recourse to deal with our sins. Peter was once asked if he would desert Jesus, and he replied that there was nowhere else to go because only Jesus had the message of eternal life. When someone I know was struggling with having committed an unforgivable sin, they were told by an older believer that their concern was evidence that they had not. One writer put it this way, “Anyone who is genuinely concerned that he may have committed the unforgivable sin has not done so. For such a person will ask God for his forgiveness. It is only the person who does not think that he or she ever needs God’s forgiveness who may have committed this sin.” John 6:37 says, “Whoever comes to me (no matter what sin they have committed) I will never turn them away.” There’s an anonymous quote that puts it into perspective. It says, “There is only one person God cannot forgive: the person who refuses to come to him for forgiveness.”

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Philippians 4:13

I Am Capable!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
April 6, 2025

I am forgivable! I am lovable! I am valuable! I am acceptable, and I am capable. Paul tells the Philippians that no matter what his life circumstances are, he can manage. In Chapter 4, verse 13 (The Amplified Bible), he writes, “I have strength for all things in Christ who empowers me — I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses inner strength into me, that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency!”

I don’t always feel “sufficient,” do you? I often feel weak, empty, and sick of struggles that overwhelm me time and again. I’m tired of not being what I should be and letting temptations sneak up on me and trip me up and circumstances that get me down. I have to continually remind myself of God’s grace. I am sufficient in Christ whether I feel like it or not. I am what God says I am, whether I believe it at the moment or not. The circumstances and temptations that take me captive have no chance at all if I hang on to God’s truth about myself. Believing what the Bible says sets us free! That’s what the truth does! It sets us free. I’m saying these things out loud as I write them. Join me: I am forgivable! I am lovable! I am valuable! I am acceptable, and I am capable! This is true, not because of any intrinsic goodness in myself, but because God says it’s true.

Let me tell you a biblical truth that will set you free. Better yet, let me quote James M. Boice on the subject. Here is what he writes, “Are you a Christian? If so, you are a saint, and so am I—regardless of our station in life. We are so, not because of what we have done, but because we have been separated unto God in Jesus. An illustration of this truth comes from the life of the late Harry Ironside of Chicago. During the early days of his ministry before there were airplanes, Dr. Ironside used to travel many miles by train. On one of these trips, a four-day ride from the West Coast to his home in Chicago, the Bible teacher found himself in the company of a party of nuns. They liked him because of his kind manner and his interesting reading and exposition of the Bible. One day, Dr. Ironside began a discussion by asking the nuns if any of them had ever seen a saint. They all said that they had never seen one. He then asked if they would like to see one. They all said that they would like to see one. Then he surprised them greatly by saying, ‘I am a saint; I am Saint Harry.’” He took them to verses of the Bible that say it was so. Sixty three times in the New Testament, “all believers” are called saints. When we come to faith in Christ we are not sinners any longer. We are saints. Boice goes on to say, “Your name may sound funny when you preface it with the title “saint.” But you may rest assured that it does not sound funny to God—whether you are a Saint George, a Saint Lucy, or a Saint Harriet. God knows us all by name, and it is he who calls us saints in Christ Jesus.

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Romans 8:1

Sinning Saints!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
April 5, 2025

I believe that although I was a sinner saved by Grace, I am now a “Saint” sustained by Grace. If I continue to think of myself as a sinner, I will behave accordingly. But in Christ Jesus, I am a Saint. His righteousness is now my righteousness. This is not to say that I do not sin. John makes it clear that to say, “I have no sin,” is to lie about myself. I do sin, but I’m no longer defined by what I do. I’m defined by who I am. I am a child of God, a saint, called, sealed, and secured by God for eternal life. Believing that truth helps me live accordingly. When temptation comes, I remind myself, “I am not a sinner,” but rather, “I am a saint.”

Some believers continually view themselves as “sinners” even after they come to faith in Christ. We are often hypnotized into seeing ourselves this way by the world, flesh, and the devil. We see ourselves fall short of our own standards as well as God’s standards and we have a plethora of evidence regarding the fact that we still sin sometimes. But I would argue that we continue to sin because we don’t grasp the truth of who we are in Christ. The four who were hypnotized to think they were a chicken, a dog, a duck, and a cat may act stupid under the trance. They might cluck, bark, quack, and meow, but they are not animals. I sometimes cluck, bark, quack, and meow out sin, but I’m not a sinner. It’s because I’ve lost sight of who I truly am in Christ. I’ve got to stop letting the world hypnotize me into believing that I’m just another sinner. I am one of God’s saints!

But pride will often hypnotize me like it did Peter. He fell away from Christ because of his overconfidence in himself. He said (see Mark 14:29), “Everyone else may stumble in their faith, but I will not.” The flesh often rises up to make us think more of ourselves than we should. Solomon says that pride always precedes a fall. It did for Peter, and it often does for me. Also, the world can just overcome me sometimes, and the stress and strains of life, in general, weaken my faith and often result in my barking or clucking. The Apostles with Jesus in Gethsemane were asked why they couldn’t stay awake and pray with him. Weariness will make me meow! The Gospels teach us that Peter followed Jesus “at a distance” (See Mark 14:54). Peter was hypnotized by the peer pressure of the crowds and found that the fear of disapproval of people resulted in his barking and a rooster crowing! But Peter is not a dog, and I am not a sinner. If you’re a believer, neither are you! These things may hypnotize all of us, but the truth of God’s word can sustain us through it all. As saints who still sin, we know that “there is now no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” (Romans 5:8)

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Lamentations 3:22

Who Would You Follow?

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
April 4, 2025

It’s difficult for us to believe that God continues to love us in our sin. Isn’t God’s love like our own love for each other, conditioned by the way we give and take? No, it’s not. God’s love is totally unconditional. We treat Him poorly, but he never stops loving us. In the book of Lamentations, Israel was experiencing the consequences of turning their backs on God but even then, God was preserving His people because of His love. Jeremiah writes in chapter 3, verse 22, “God’s compassion never ends.” It doesn’t matter how bad we’ve been, how much we’ve offended Him, or hurt Him, he never stops loving us. The verse goes on, “It is only His mercies that have kept us from complete destruction.”

From Mike Greens’ Illustrations for Biblical Preaching comes this little story about unconditional love: One Sunday, a little boy looked up at his dad and asked, “Daddy, how does God love us?” His father answered, “Son, God loves us with an unconditional love.” The lad thought for a moment and then asked, “Daddy, what kind of love is unconditional love?” After a few minutes of silence, his father answered, “Do you remember the two boys who used to live next door to us and the cute little puppy they got last Christmas?” “Yes.” “Do you remember how they used to tease it, throw sticks, and even rocks at it?” “Yes.” “Do you also remember how the puppy would always greet them with a wagging tail and would try to lick their faces?” “Yes.” “Well, that puppy had an unconditional love for those two boys. They certainly didn’t deserve his love for them because they were mean to him. But, he loved them anyway.” The father then made his point: “God’s love for us is also unconditional. Men threw rocks at his Son, Jesus, and hit him with sticks. They even killed him. But Jesus loved them anyway.” Richard Halverson, former Senate Chaplain, put it this way, “There is nothing you can do to make God love you more! There is nothing you can do to make God love you less! His love is Unconditional, Impartial, Everlasting, Infinite, Perfect!”

If you’re linked up with new social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, and probably others, you know what it means to “follow” someone. You stay in touch with them and find out what they’re doing and are reminded frequently of their activities. Jesus said to those he called, “Follow me.” If you had to choose to follow someone with the greatest analytical skills, the sharpest mind, the greatest set of gifts, the largest bank account, or a person who would love you unconditionally, who would you choose? Me too! And guess what? The one who loves us unconditionally has all the rest as well.

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Philippians 3:2-3

The Performance Trap!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
April 3, 2025

Living by the flesh is to put my trust and confidence in my own strength. Living by the Spirit is putting my trust and confidence in the Lord. There are many hypnotists in the world today who will put us in a trance and cause us to act in ways contrary to our true identity as saints, the children of a loving God. It’s interesting that the Jews often referred to gentiles as goyim or dogs. In Philippians 3:2, Paul tells the believers to “look out for the dogs…” But his use of the term refers to those who would put you under the slavery of the religious rituals of Judaism. Because circumcision was the rite that identified Jews as the children of God, some insisted that all converts to Christianity had to be circumcised to be acceptable in the family of God. It was the same focus on “doing deeds” to win acceptance. But Paul says, “No, those who insist on such and such a ritual or such and such of a performance in order to be acceptable are the dogs, not those of us who are living by grace through faith.” He says in verse 3, “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”

Max Landers, in his commentary on this passage in Philippians, tells a great story and makes a powerful application. He writes: “A number of years ago, I was in Mexico City, visiting the central square. This huge paved square is surrounded by grand buildings on three sides. On the fourth side is a great cathedral. I saw something on that visit which, I understand, is not all that unusual but which made a deep impression on me. A peasant woman was crawling across the great square, palms, and knees being gouged by the ancient stones which pave the square. After she had crawled a while, she would stop, rise to her knees, pray a while, and then begin crawling a little farther. The slow, painful crawl seemed to take forever as she tried to appease God through her self-inflicted suffering. I saw a similar sight in Guatemala. People brought gifts to the church and lay them on the altar. They knocked on the wood of the altar, trying to get God to notice them. They lit candles and poured wine as an offering, seeking to merit God’s favor.”

Max continues: “These incidents are sad examples of how far people will go to win God’s favor and earn his grace. Yet, we often fall into similar bondages as we try to please God. We fear that if we get irregular in our Bible reading and prayer, God will punish us. Or we feel that if we don’t give money to the church, God will not bless us. Or we get into the performance trap in our efforts to be accepted by God. We volunteer for everything and never say no because we fear that God will not fully love and approve of us. If you have trouble believing that God accepts you, if you have difficulty resting in the fact that God loves you, if you feel you have to do something to earn acceptance in God’s eyes, then you have something in common with the woman in Mexico. You are crawling across the painful, rocky pavement, trying to earn God’s favor. These performances are a terrible burden because you can never know if you have done enough to appease him.” Don’t forget, Jesus paid it all.

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