Loving Jesus Style

  Pardon That Produces Reverence Scripture: Psalm 130:3-4 (NIV) "If you, LORD, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you." Devotion: The psalmist writes from the depths, and from there he asks a question with only one honest answer. If God kept a record of sins, who could stand? The image is of a ledger, carefully maintained, every thought, word, and deed entered and nothing forgotten. Not the priest, not the king, not the most devout believer in the congregation could stand before such an account. Honest self-examination confirms the verdict. Yet the psalm does not end with the question. It turns on one small word: "But." Between the ledger we deserve and the mercy we need stands this conjunction, and the whole gospel hangs upon it. With God there is forgiveness. The psalmist does not say sin is trivial or that God overlooks it. The guilt is real. But forgiveness is found ...

  Scripture: 1 John 2:28 (NIV) "And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming." Devotion: John writes as an aged pastor, and his tenderness shows in the phrase "dear children." He has just warned about teachers who abandoned the fellowship, and his answer to such defection is not a clever new strategy but an old, simple word: continue. The same word is often translated "abide" or "remain." Stay where you are. Stay in him. Notice that the command looks forward. Continue in him, John says, so that when he appears we may be confident. The Christian life is lived with an eye on the horizon. Christ is coming again, visibly and personally, and everything we do between now and then is shaped by that appointment. We are not drifting toward an unknown; we are waiting for a Person we already know. Two words describe the hoped-for condition: confident and unashamed. Th...

  Scripture: Romans 5:1 (NIV) "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Devotion: Paul begins with a small word that carries a large load: "Therefore." Whenever we meet it, we should ask what it is there for. Here it gathers up four chapters of argument. All have sinned. No one is righteous. Yet God has declared sinners righteous, not because of anything we have done, but because of Christ, received by faith alone. Notice the tense. We have been justified. This is not a hope for the last day, still hanging in the balance. It is a finished verdict, pronounced by the Judge himself. And because it is finished, the next clause follows: we have peace with God. Not that we are working toward peace, nor that we feel peaceful, but that we have it. That distinction matters, because our feelings are poor witnesses. On some mornings we wake anxious, aware of our failures, and conclude that God mus...

John 3:16 (NIV) "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Devotion: We know John 3:16 so well that we forget where it was first spoken: not in a stadium, but in the dark. Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, a respected teacher of Israel who could not see what stood before him. Jesus did not flatter his credentials. He told him he must be born again. Nicodemus asks, "How can this be?" The answer is not self-improvement, but God's movement: the Son of Man lifted up as the serpent was in the wilderness, and then this verse. Notice the order. Before "whoever believes," Jesus says the Spirit blows where he wills and that no one enters the kingdom unless born from above. Faith is not our offering to God. It is the fruit of the God who first loved and gave. Consider the verbs. God loved. God gave. We believe. Only one of those is ours, and even it is received ...

  Wonders Planned Long Ago Scripture: Isaiah 25:1 (NIV) “Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.” Devotion: Isaiah 25 opens with a song. It follows chapters of judgment, where the prophet has described the shaking of the earth and the fall of proud cities. Yet here, in the midst of that darkness, the prophet lifts his voice in praise. Worship is not reserved for easy seasons; it rises from those who have seen God’s hand in both judgment and mercy. “Lord, you are my God.” The personal note matters. Isaiah does not merely acknowledge that God exists, or that He rules the nations. He speaks as one in covenant, claiming the Lord as his own. This is the language of the faithful remnant, and it is the language Christ has opened to all who trust in Him. The God who thunders over the nations is the God to whom we may say, “my God.” “I will exalt you and praise your name.” No...

Scripture: 2 Timothy 4:5 (NIV) "But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." Devotion: Paul writes these words from a Roman prison, with his execution drawing near. They are the counsel of a dying pastor to a younger one, carrying the weight of a man who has run the race and is about to lay down his sword. That he gives them to Timothy, and through Timothy to the church in every age, reminds us that ministry is a stewardship passed from one generation to the next. "But you." The contrast is deliberate. In the verses just before, Paul warns that people will gather teachers to suit their own desires and turn away from sound doctrine. The times will be unfaithful, but the minister is not to be swept along. Whatever the climate around him, he must stand firm. "Keep your head in all situations." Sober-mindedness is the first call. The minister must not be carried...