Gospel.com Blog

The Today devotional reflects this morning on the tension that Jesus experienced because he was both human and divine. In Luke 4:28-30, Jesus returns to Nazareth where he grew up only to find outright hatred rather than acceptance:

Imagine what you would think if someone you had grown up with came to your town and claimed he was there to fulfill an ancient prophecy. Of course you would dismiss him; the notion is outrageous. But thats what happened in Nazareth. Jesus, the son of a local carpenter, came and announced one Sabbath day that he was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 61.

He claimed to be the Messiah when he said, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. It seemed outrageouseven blasphemous, because he claimed to be God (which was true). No ordinary human being had the right to make that kind of claim. No wonder the elders of his town were so upset that they were ready to put him to death! (See Luke 4:28-30.)

As we spend time this Advent thinking about what Jesus’ birth, it’s important to remember that even before his last days on earth He wasn’t universally loved during His time on this earth. It’s a sobering fact that the savior of Humanity was almost stoned by the people he grew up with.

Does the fact that Jesus experienced heartache and hatred change your perception of Him? How does hearing the story of Jesus’ nearly being stoned make you feel?

God’s law, revealed in the Ten Commandments and throughout the Bible, is often caricatured as a giant list of “thou shalt not’s”. Unfortunately, throughout church history, Christians have often contributed to this impression by focusing their energies too much what believers aren’t supposed to be doing.

But as this devotional by Chuck Swindoll points out, one amazing thing about God’s law as summarized by Jesus is how active and positive it is:

“Therefore, however you want people to treat you, so treat them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:2). That single sentence is perhaps the most famous statement Jesus ever made. It is the “Everest of Ethics,” as one man put it. In some ways it is the cornerstone of true Christianity, certainly the capstone of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

I appreciate the positive emphasis. Instead of saying, “Don’t do this,” He says, “Do this.”

You want to impact your family, your church, your community, your place of employment? You want to make a difference in the life of your mate, a family member, a friend (Christian or not), some person in the workplace? Demonstrate the characteristics of Christ.

There are certainly activities God doesn’t want His children to participate in. But a truly Christlike life isn’t obsessed with “thou shalt not’s”—it’s obsessed with actively living out Christian values in our life and relationships.

Do you volunteer (or work) at your church? If you’re involved in any aspect of ministry, you’ve probably learned firsthand that there are far more ministry needs out there than a typical church or ministry has the time or capacity to address.

Faced with this reality, how do you respond? For many church workers and volunteers, the answer is to stretch themselves ever more thin to try and help as many people as possible. Blaine Smith of Nehemiah Ministries encourages us to respect our own limits while helping others:

At a staff meeting one Sunday afternoon a member complained to the youth pastor that many of us were feeling considerably overtaxed. He responded that we must learn to place some limits on ourselves. But, she replied, Jesus never turned his back on any persons need.

As quickly as the words left her lips he shot back, “But youre not Jesus Christ!”

It was at that moment as though giant chains dropped from my body. As a young Christian I simply assumed I was to imitate Jesus in every way possible. This meant striving to live at his energy level, and following his pattern of continually responding to an overwhelming variety of needs.

For the first time it dawned on me that there was a difference between how Jesus ministered to people and how I was expected to do so. God had put me within a certain physical shell, and I was to operate within its limitations. Not only was it okay to pace myself–I was required to do so. What a glorious insight!

However laudable the motives, trying to respond to every need or problem is a sure road to exhaustion and burnout. And this isn’t just a problem for church workers and volunteers–it’s easy to be overwhelmed by needs in our families and friendships.

What do you think of Smith’s advice? How do you draw reasonable limits in responding to needs?

When we are sick, we feel as if the world is out of order. It doesn’t take much to put us in that state either, a simple cold can make our emotional and spiritual lives feel off-kilter. Not to mention the havoc it plays on our physical bodies. Our Daily Bread reflects today on how physical healing is a portent of what to expect in God’s kingdom:

Within our orderly world, disease is a sign that something is out of order. Healing is a sign that God will some day restore all things to their original condition (Acts 3:21). When John the Baptist wanted to know whether Jesus was the Coming One, Jesus said, Go and tell John . . . the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them (Luke 7:20-22). Healing was evidence that Jesus was Israels Messiah (Mal. 4:2).

We look forward to a time when our bodies are restored by God, but until that time, what are ways you thank God for the health you have?

It’s easy to slip into a routine faith. We go to church, read our Bibles and pray every once in a while, and think that’s enough. We forget that God wants us to continually yearn for Him.

Our devotional this morning from Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening can be seen as a wakeup call to any of us who have slipped into a lazy faith. In it, he exhorts us to forcefully cast off whatever it is that is keeping us from experiencing God to the fullest:

Rouse thee, O believer, from thy low condition! Cast away thy sloth, thy lethargy, thy coldness, or whatever interferes with thy chaste and pure love to Christ, thy souls Husband. Make him the source, the centre, and the circumference of all thy souls range of delight. What enchants thee into such folly as to remain in a pit when thou mayst sit on a throne? Live not in the lowlands of bondage now that mountain liberty is conferred upon thee. Rest no longer satisfied with thy dwarfish attainments, but press forward to things more sublime and heavenly. Aspire to a higher, a nobler, a fuller life. Upward to heaven! Nearer to God!

Is there anything in your life that you’ve let come between you and the fullness of God’s love and grace?

It’s easy to forget that God is present in everything that we experience. And when we do remember that fact, there’s a human tendency to attempt to imbue all of those rote experiences of life with a sort of spiritual seriousness. Oswald Chambers argues that those “shallow” moments of our lives life provide a context for the real spiritual moments of life, and when we spiritualize mundane experiences of life, we invite pride into our lives. We should remember that Jesus had many shallow experiences during his life on Earth, and that was okay:

Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person God became a baby.

To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, A disciple is not above his teacher . . . (Matthew 10:24).

Is there any area or activity in your life that you’ve wrongly overspiritualized?

How much time do you spend worrying about clothes, food and other necessities of life?

In Matthew 6 Jesus tells us that our worry over those things is misguided. Instead, our priorities should be seeking the kingdom of God and pursuing God’s righteousness (or justice depending on the translation). And, as Kent Van Til of the Today devotional reminds us, by seeking the kingdom and God’s justice, everything that we need will follow:

In ancient times, a king was the provider of justice and peace in the land. So seeking Gods kingdom involves a search for the justice of God. And we know what Gods justice is like if we have read Jesus teaching in the text surrounding our passage for today (see Matthew 5-7). In the kingdom great reversals occurthe poor inherit kingdom riches, the sorrowful are comforted, the empty are filled. The justice of God turns worldly justice on its head. The first are last, and the last first.

As Christians, we are called to seek out and establish this upside-down justice of Gods kingdom. Remember that seeking this justice is primary. To justice seekers in Gods kingdom, other things will come.

Is God convicting you about any of your priorities? What changes could you make to your life in order to make pursuing the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness bigger priorities?

Are you so wrapped up in the “schedule” of your life, work, and ministry that you risk missing the unexpected opportunities God sends your way?

Blaine Smith describes following God’s timing as one of the great challenges of the Christian life. It’s easy for us to get so focused on what we think God has planned for us, that we aren’t prepared to take advantage of unplanned ministry openings. He points to Jesus’ ministry as an example of a life lived in accordance with God’s timing:

Much of Jesus ministry was a sanctified response to interruptions. Take a typical day: After teaching a large crowd for a long time, he breaks for time alone, only to have his disciples ask him to explain his parables (Mk 4:10). That evening, while traveling in a boat, they awake him to deal with an unruly storm (Mk 4:38), and when they arrive at the other side of the lake, Jesus is confronted by a man with multiple demons (Mk 5:1-13). In each of these cases, Jesus responds immediately to those who need his help.

Many opportunities, both for serving Christ and for experiencing his provision for our own needs, come packaged in unwelcome interruptions. We need to pray constantly for alertness to these openings when they confront us. Without such awareness, were likely to lag behind Gods timing.

Is there an “interruption” knocking at your door right now, threatening to divert you from the careful plan you’ve set for yourself? It’s worth asking yourself if it’s truly a diversion, or if God is presenting you with an unexpected opportunity to serve Him.

Have you ever written off someone just because of the way they look or act?

Every day, we pass up opportunities to connect with people because we assume that they’re too busy, or too angry, or too different than us. When we jump to such conclusions, we may be missing out on an opportunity to share God’s love. Our Daily Bread offers us a simple story about how reaching out without judgment can be a life-changing action:

Two young men with mischief on their minds approached a missionarys outreach bus parked in a downtown area of a German city.

The missionaries were there to offer refreshments as a way to open up conversations about Christ. The two visitors, wearing skull-and-crossbones bandannas, were there to offer trouble.

But the missionaries didnt respond to the ruffians as they expected. The Christians welcomed them warmly and engaged them in discussion. Surprised, the guys hung around long enough to hear the gospel. One trusted Jesus that day. The other, the next day.

Those two young men and the missionaries who reached them were light-years apart culturally. The guys were German; the missionaries, American. The guys were involved in a culture of darkness and death; the missionaries were shining the light. The cultural divide was crossed with cookies and nonjudgmental love.

Are there particular people in your life that you ignore because you think you’re too different from them? Have you ever shared God’s love with someone who was “different”? How did it go?

In this Morning and Evening devotional, Charles Spurgeon observes a simple yet profound truth of the Christian life: no matter how low we sink, no matter what we do or what trials we face, God is always there:

God—the eternal God—is himself our support at all times, and especially when we are sinking in deep trouble. There are seasons when the Christian sinks very low in humiliation. Under a deep sense of his great sinfulness, he is humbled before God till he scarcely knows how to pray, because he appears, in his own sight, so worthless. Well, child of God, remember that when thou art at thy worst and lowest, yet underneath thee are everlasting arms. Sin may drag thee ever so low, but Christs great atonement is still under all. You may have descended into the deeps, but you cannot have fallen so low as the uttermost; and to the uttermost he saves. Again, the Christian sometimes sinks very deeply in sore trial from without. Every earthly prop is cut away. What then? Still underneath him are the everlasting arms. He cannot fall so deep in distress and affliction but what the covenant grace of an ever-faithful God will still encircle him. The Christian may be sinking under trouble from within through fierce conflict, but even then he cannot be brought so low as to be beyond the reach of the everlasting armsthey are underneath him; and, while thus sustained, all Satans efforts to harm him avail nothing.

Does knowing that we can never “be beyond the reach of the everlasting arms’ comfort you? How does that knowledge change how you approach situations in your life?