Gospel.com Blog

Have you ever sinned expecting it to be pleasurable or even joyful and instead experienced the complete opposite?

Part of what makes temptation so damaging is how it makes sinful activities appear appealing. It’s only after we’ve given in to our desires that we realize, or remember, that there is real pain associated with stepping outside of God’s law.

Our devotional this morning is from This is Today by Adrian A. Helleman. Helleman reminds us below that there is no real lasting joy in sin. In fact, the aftermath of sin is usually nothing but guilt:

Some people I know do not like to obey the law—and certainly not God’s law. They make their own rules. The psalmist, however, praises God’s law as true and beautiful. Whether we are young or old, we do well to walk with God, the only source of blessing and goodness in life (James 1:17).

Whenever we disobey God’s law by giving in to temptation, we may feel a thrill or a sense of freedom or fun or ecstasy, but it won’t last, and sooner or later we experience disappointment and grief for doing wrong. Then we realize that the psalmist is right: only by following God’s way for our lives will we have full, joyful life (see John 10:10).

I know this from personal experience. I have done things that were wrong, and later I had no joy. You probably have had this experience too. It’s the Holy Spirit of God who convicts us of sin (John 16:8). The Spirit stirs our hearts to remember God’s law, and we realize we have done wrong. But the Spirit then also encourages and guides us to live by the truth of God (John 16:13). We can depend on him!

Read the entire devotional at thisistoday.net.

Have you ever felt “disappointment and grief for doing wrong?” What’s the most recent example in your life of the Holy Spirit stirring your heart?

Over the last months, we’ve posted dozens of different devotionals from around the web; hopefully you’ve found them inspiring and maybe even bookmarked a few for your daily reading.

But today, we thought it would be useful to back up and ask a more basic question about Christian devotional practice: Is devotional time important for Christians?

Most Christians would probably answer an instinctive “yes” to that question; but exactly why is it important to spend time in personal devotions? DiscipleshipTools.org has put together an excellent series of short essays that explain the basics of Christian devotions. It begins with a look at how to do devotions and goes on to explain why devotions are important and what spiritual benefits result from doing devotions.

If you’ve never tried “doing devotions,” or if you’ve drifted out of the habit of spending time in prayer and reflection each day, take a look at these articles. And if you’ve got any tips or suggestions for making the most out of your devotional time, share them in the comments below!

Are you familiar with the concept of “structural sin”? It refers to sin on a national or cultural scale: common habits, practices, and assumptions in a society that believers come to adopt. Instead of nudging their culture in a more godly direction, believers are instead pulled farther away from God by the culture. Structural sin corrupts over time, as we slowly absorb values and ideas contrary to Biblical teaching.

Wonder of Creation posted a convicting devotional this week about the power of structural sin, citing the Old Testament Babylonian captivity as a powerful example. The people of Judah were exiled until they recognized their sin and repented:

In this age of grace, God typically does not deal with us as directly. Further, no one nation now represents the “chosen people.” Instead, his children are all over the world where as the Body of Christ they are to be “salt and light” to the nations—preserving and enlightening them with the truth about the one true God (Israel’s initial responsibility). But just as the Jews were influenced by the idol-worshiping nations around them, we individual followers of Jesus can come under the influence of sinful and idol-worshiping people around us.

Consider spending a few minutes in the next few days to think about the way you and I live and what social, political, cultural, and economic systems tend to run our lives. Think about that old list of “seven deadly sins”: anger, greed, laziness, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. How many of these are built into the structures of our society? Because they are “just the way we do business and live our lives in the modern world,” we tend to excuse them because “everybody lives that way.” God will probably not send us into literal captivity for our wholesale ignoring of His commands; but we might well find ourselves in captivities of several different sorts.

There’s no question that our society—any society—is riddled with sin and corruption. Looking at your life, would you say that you are influencing those around you in a godly manner… or is society influencing you with values that conflict with the Gospel?

In Matthew 6:6, Jesus tells us that when we pray to “go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place.” But, as Oswald Chambers points out in this devotional, Jesus is addressing more than just our physical location. He’s also guiding us on our spiritual posture towards prayer:

The primary thought in the area of religion is—keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.

“When you pray, do not use vain repetitions . . .” (Matthew 6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly—He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God—that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.

Read the entire devotional at utmost.org.

How have you seen your physical location change your prayer life? How has talking about your prayer life affected your approach to it?

Is Christianity a crutch, a delusion, an exercise in wishful thinking? Those charges have certainly been levelled against the faith plenty of times, and critics of Christianity continue to argue that people would be better off by “freeing” themselves of the shackles of religious thought.

In this Slice of Infinity devotional, Jill Carattini counters with the suggestion that Christianity’s critics aren’t offering the positive alternative to religion they imagine they are:

But do the growing numbers of atheists who insist that life without God is “freeing” not succumb to a similar temptation, making life and even death sound better than their own philosophies impart? If God is a farce and life is but rapidly moving time and the unapologetic force of chance, is “reassured” really a viable option? If there is no divine being, no creator of time, no one hearing prayers or answering the cries of injustice, can we really be comforted, unworried, even lighthearted about life as we know it….

Surely we can attempt to dress such a philosophy in beautiful robes, but in the end we will find it was all an act. Whatever our philosophies, whatever colorful billboards catch our eyes, we do well to follow them to their logical ends….

Faith in God is not a source of worry, as the buses and billboards (and perhaps some believers) suggest, nor is faith in Christ an obstacle for enjoying life. Far from this, by faith the Christian is given a life truly like that of Christ’s—fully human, fully alive. And whether Christian or atheist, freethinker or fretting player, we must take care not to raise billboards that suggest something other than our philosophies impart.

If you’re still on the fence about registering for the Internet Ministry Conference today is the day to decide. It’s the last day to lock in your early bird registration rate!

The Internet Ministry Conference is a gathering of some extremely smart people to talk about the issues that ministries face on the web. Take a look at the list of speakers and the schedule of events to get an idea of what’s planned.

I attended the IMC a few years ago and found it be a wonderful opportunity to think hard about the nuts and bolts of online ministry. It’s also a great place to meet a wide variety of people who are reaching out to the lost and hurting online in some creative ways.

Head over to InternetMinistryConference.com for more information.

The devotional from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening below centers around the simple idea that God uses our labor to bless not only us, but those that come after us. Specifically, Spurgeon uses the example of a well. We dig it, God fills it and later on someone other than us stumbles across it and uses it.

In some ways I see this principle mirrored in old church buildings. The original congregation sacrificed time and resources to build the building, God sustained the congregation over the generations and then the future congregation uses the building to worship and serve in ways that wouldn’t have been possible without it:

The comfort obtained by a one may often prove serviceable to another; just as wells would be used by the company who came after. We read some book full of consolation, which is like Jonathan’s rod, dropping with honey. Ah! we think our brother has been here before us, and digged this well for us as well as for himself … Travellers have been delighted to see the footprint of man on a barren shore, and we love to see the waymarks of pilgrims while passing through the vale of tears.

The pilgrims dig the well, but, strange enough, it fills from the top instead of the bottom. We use the means, but the blessing does not spring from the means. We dig a well, but heaven fills it with rain. The horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord. The means are connected with the end, but they do not of themselves produce it. See here the rain fills the pools, so that the wells become useful as reservoirs for the water; labour is not lost, but yet it does not supersede divine help.

Read the entire devotional at ccel.org.

How have you been blessed by the efforts of those who went before you? Is there anything you’ve been involved in that’s gone on to bless someone else?

My denomination recently felt the sting of international travel difficulties. Many church leaders on their way to attend the much-anticipated first gathering of the World Communion of Reformed Churches were denied visas to enter the United States. In all, a whopping seventeen percent of applicants were denied visas to attend the conference:

Martin Wanjala was eager to represent the 1,000 members of his Eastern Africa churches at a global conference of Reformed churches in Grand Rapids. He never got the chance.

Wanjala was denied a visa by the U.S. embassy in Kampala, Uganda, to attend the founding meeting of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). Despite having the required documentation, including his bank account, marriage, and ordination certificates, Wanjala was told he lacked “sufficient ties” that ensured he would return to Uganda….

Wanjala was one of 74 participants denied visas to the mid-June gathering of the WCRC, a new affiliation of 230 Reformed denominations from 108 countries.

As the Christianity Today article notes, U.S. officials have good reasons to be cautious in approving visas for entry into the country. Nobody’s accusing the government of unfairly picking on churches. But this isn’t the first time that church organizations have been hurt by visa difficulties; earlier this year, 20% of registrants for the Baptist World Alliance’s World Congress were denied visas. This issue has even cropped up in my own church when a long-time staff member (a seminarian who moved to the U.S. from Romania) was forced to temporarily leave the country due to difficulties with his visa. It was disruptive to the church and even more so to his wife and young children.

Situations like this may be unavoidable, but it is nonetheless dismaying to note that even as the church becomes more globally interconnected (and more and more churches support international missionaries), problems like this make it difficult to meet face-to-face with brothers and sisters from around the world.

Has your church run into problems like this, and if so, how did things work out? Is there anything a church or denomination can do to anticipate and avoid international travel problems?

Jonah spends the majority of his eponymous book complaining and running away from responsibility. When he finally does do what God asked him to do, an entire city repents and begins fervently worshiping God. Neither Jonah nor God are surprised by this outcome, in fact, Jonah ran away because he was worried it was going to happen!

Our devotional today from Today in the Word reminds us that God will use us to do His will, even if it means working with our half-hearted attempts at obedience:

As reported in Leadership Journal, a recent survey found that religious faith in America is decreasing. The number of those identifying themselves as “Christian” has gone down by 11 percent since 1990. The answer “None” (15%) was the only category to grow in all 50 states, and it was the fastest-growing category across the board. The “Don’t know/confused” category also grew significantly. One of the survey’s co-authors commented that people are more or less making up their own religious identities and tend to view religion mainly as a form of self-expression.

The results of this survey suggest that had it been Americans instead of Ninevites hearing the message of Jonah, we might not have responded as they did. Despite the prophet’s halfhearted, short-and-not-very-sweet sermon, the people of Nineveh began repenting as soon as they heard it! Though from a human perspective their response was completely unexpected, as explained in yesterday’s devotion, it was no surprise to God. Clearly He had been preparing the hearts of these pagans to heed His message and receive His mercy. The credit certainly shouldn’t go to Jonah—he made about as feeble an effort as one can imagine. Rather, God had set the stage and the time was ripe. When Jonah finally obeyed, events unfolded exactly as God intended. Jonah himself had sensed God’s purposes and been (sinfully) afraid this would happen (4:2).

Read the devotional at todayintheword.com

Is there anything God has been asking you to do that you’ve been resisting? How has God provided for you when you do obey him?

When disaster strikes our lives, it’s natural for Christians to pray for relief from it—we want God to fix or take away the pain of illness, damaged relationships, spiritual malaise, and other troubles.

That is a perfectly reasonable reaction to life’s trials. But in this A Word With You devotional, Ron Hutchcraft observes that the challenges facing us are not always without helpful effects. Just as physical pain can be critical in bringing an urgent medical problem to our attention, sometimes life’s trials can help us by warning us of even more serious spiritual problems that need addressing:

Things going wrong can be your friend if they show you a problem that could really hurt you and if they get you to the help that you need. Now, that may be what’s happening in your life right now, and it may explain the real reason for what’s going wrong. In short, God wants you back before some really damaging things happen because you’re not where you’re supposed to be with Him….

If you’re away from Jesus, the one whose love you were made for, the one who died for you, things are only going to get worse because He loves you. Things are going wrong, not to hurt you, not to destroy you, but to help you wake up to something far more serious that’s going on in your soul. You’ve got a deadly heart condition, and you need to get to the doctor before it does serious damage. You need to get to Dr. Jesus. It stinks away from Him. The porch light is on, the door is open, and Jesus is coming down the road to welcome you home. And home is where you belong.

Looking back at some of the trials you’ve been through, do you see how God may have used some of them to point out problems in your spiritual life? If you feel dissatisfied and overwhelmed by life right now, could it be that God is nudging you to draw closer to Him?