Living Dangerously In The Hands Of God

Text: 2 Chronicles 16:9

How easily Jesus is forgotten amid the comfort of our lives

How the flames become a flicker, and faith a brilliant disguise

Our Sundays become a holiday, they're an empty exercise

And the cost of real devotion seems so foreign to our lives

Oh, to gladly risk it all, oh to be faithful to His call

Abandoned to grace yet anchored in His love

Living dangerously in the hands of God

Our Lord He is a hiding place, His hold is strong and sure

Though the storms may rage around you, in His love you stand secure

So live like you believe it, and though your faith is prone to fail

Though you cower under trial, by His grace you shall prevail

Oh, to gladly risk it all, oh to be faithful to His call

Abandoned to grace yet anchored in His love

Living dangerously in the hands of God

There's safety in complacency, but God is calling us

Out of our comfort zone into a life of complete surrender to the cross.

To live dangerously

Is not to live recklessly but righteously.

And it is because of God's radical grace

For us that we can risk living

A life of radical obedience for Him.

You've got to walk on for the Lord He walks with us

You've got to walk on though it costs you everything

You've got to pray on

Oh, to gladly risk it all, oh to be faithful to His call

Abandoned to grace yet anchored in His love

Living dangerously in the hands of God

Living dangerously

Are you living dangerously?

Oh we ought to be living dangerously in the hands of God

*** Written by Steve Camp ***

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Contending For Holiness

TEXT: 1 CORINTHIANS 3:1-4

Key Verse: “For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” (1 Corinthians 3:3)

When the head of government of a country who was visiting another nation was told of a crisis back home, he cut short his trip and returned to address the domestic challenge. It would have been cruel and heartless of him to have continued the journey while his country was engulfed with unrest. A good and caring leader or shepherd in the household of God would behave the same way.

Our text today identifies Paul the apostle as a concerned guardian. About to close his three-year ministry in Ephesus during his third missionary journey, he was told about the divisive tendencies creeping into the Church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:10-13). It was a disheartening news for Paul who had spent one and a half years with the Corinthian Church teaching the brethren the pure and undiluted word of God (Acts 18:11). Now, he heard that these Corinthian Christians were poised to adapt to the low standards around them. Some of them had already compromised by breaking into factions engaging in incest, resorting to lawsuits to settle disputes between them, abusing spiritual gifts and manifesting unholy conduct at home, in the Church and in the public.

Although Paul could not stop his work in Ephesus to visit Corinth, he quickly dispatched a grave letter to the brethren to draw them back to the uncorrupted teaching of Christ. He warns that what they have been accused of are acts of carnality that should not be seen among genuine Christians. As a true shepherd, Paul told them the truth that liberates. He delivered to them “all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

Fighting the good fight of faith, defending Christ’s doctrine of outward and inward holiness as qualification for entry into heaven is the responsibility of all believers. Wherever we are, God enjoins us to “contend for the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). It is our primary and sacred duty.

THOUGHT FOR YOU: A firm stand for holiness is a courageous stand for Christ.

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Take The Pain

TEXT: 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Several years ago a very graphic movie was made about the horrors of the Vietnam war. There was one scene in the movie where a foot soldier stepped on a land mine and half of his leg was blown away. Frantically he fell down and began to scream hysterically. So loud was his outburst of pain that he put the rest of his comrades in danger by giving their position away. To prevent this from happening the master sergeant jumped on top of him, cupped his hand over the fallen soldier's mouth, and said through gritted teeth, "Take the pain! Take the pain!"

Forgive me for using this gut-wrenching illustration to make my point but sometimes we all face brutal trials that for us are equally severe. Also, I am wondering if God sometimes asks us to do the same thing. "Take the pain!"

Why do I say that? The Bible does tell us to endure hardship like a good soldier in Christ. If we are enduring hardship then that means the hardship is not taken away. Right? Let's also not forget that He never did take away Paul's thorn in the flesh. When God told Paul "My grace is sufficient for you" was He telling him to "Take the pain"?

I believe He was and now we must ask the question "Why?" When you think about it, this is not a hard question to answer. What it all comes down to is that God insists on being number one in our lives. He wants us to seek Him more than anything else.

Here's what I'm saying. Sometimes our trials get so bad that we seek the answer to our problem more than we seek Him. We crave the solution so much that it becomes a god-like idol to us and God says we are to have no other gods before Him.

The enemy sends trials our way to distract us from God and from fulfilling the call on our lives. The devil is hoping we'll get so distracted by the trial that we'll spend more time seeking the solution to our problem than we do God. We are told in scripture to not be deceived by the wiles of the devil and this is one of his most cunning and successful strategies against the body of Christ.

So what should we do? Keep doing what we were doing before the trial began. Learn to seek God more than the solution to all our problems. Seek His face and not His hand. Trust me, when you do this you are showing the devil that he cannot and will not win this battle.

God will not leave you stranded and before you know it the victory will come rushing into your life like a mighty wave on the open sea. I say again, don't make the same mistake I've made several times over by making a god or an idol out of the solution to your problem. Seek God and for sure the victory will be yours. After all, it is He Who always leads us to triumph in Christ Jesus.

*** Written by Randall J. Brewer ***

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The Path Of Love

TEXT: 1 John 3:11-14

Key Verse: "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death" (1 John 3:14).

It is rather fascinating that the apostle who wrote this has become known as the apostle of love. But if you read the gospel records of John, you will note that this is not his nature at all. He and his brother James earned from Jesus the title Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17) because they were constantly wanting to blast back at those who opposed them. John's temperament was not naturally inclined to show love. But when he was born again, there was born into his heart the life of God, and this man began to show love.

Jacob De Shazer bombed Tokyo early in World War II. He was captured by the Japanese and put in prison. He hated his Japanese captors and was so violent and vicious that they feared him. They kept him in solitary confinement because of the hatred with which he lashed out against them. But he obtained a copy of the Bible and began to read it through.

In the loneliness of his cell, he came to realize the life that is in Jesus Christ. An amazing change came over this man. His hatred of the Japanese changed completely. He began to love his captors and to show love toward them, and they were utterly astonished by what had happened to him. Instead of burning with wrath, resentment, and viciousness against them, he became the most docile of prisoners, eagerly cooperating with his captors and praying for them.

Eventually, the story of his change of heart was written up in a little tract, and, after the war, it fell into the hands of a young Japanese captain, Mitsuo Fuchida, the man who led the air raid against Pearl Harbor and gave the command to drop the bombs on that fateful day of December 7.

Mitsuo Fuchida was a hero in Japan after the war because of that exploit and others, but his own heart was empty. Somehow he read the tract that told the story of De Shazer's amazing change of heart. He was arrested and puzzled by the story. From somewhere he obtained a New Testament and began to read it with growing interest.

At last he came to the story of the crucifixion. When he read the Lord's words from the cross, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34), his heart broke. He realized that this one who could love His enemies and pray for those who persecuted Him was manifesting a quality of life that no natural human being could possibly show. Mitsuo Fuchida became a Christian and an evangelist, telling the story of a love that can change human hearts.

Such love is the sign of the new life. It is a love that you not only extend toward those who love you, but toward those who do not love you. It is a love that does not depend upon a reciprocal relationship but loves the unlovely, the unqualified, the ungrateful, the selfish, and the difficult.

This, then, is the character of true love, and it is always evidence that a new life has come, the life born of God.

Food for Thought: This is the character of true love: It does not depend upon a reciprocal relationship but loves the unlovely, the unqualified, the ungrateful, the selfish, and the difficult.

*** Culled from Ray Stedman Ministry | www.raystedman.org

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Welcome To September: Vanity

Reference Text: Isaiah 55:6-7; Ecclesiastes 1:2-14

From The Truth Media family,

Happy New Month!

The fleet astronomer can bore

And thread the spheres with his quick-piercing mind:

He views their stations, walks from door to door

Surveys, as if he had designed

To make a purchase there: he sees their dances

And knoweth long before

Both their full-eyed aspects, and secret glances

The nimble diver with his side

Cuts through the working waves that he may fetch

His dearly-earned pearl, which God did hide

On purpose from the ventrous wretch

That he might save his life, and also hers

Who with excessive pride

Her own destruction and his danger wears

The subtle chymick can devest

And strip the creature naked, till he find

The callow principles within their nest:

There he imparts to them his mind

Admitted to their bed-chamber, before

They appear trim and drest

To ordinary suitors at the door

What hath not man sought out and found

But his dear God? Who yet His glorious law

Embosoms in us, mellowing the ground

With showers and frosts, with love and awe

So that we need not say, where is this command?

Poor man, thou searchest round

To find out death, but missest life at hand.

*** Written by George Herbert ***

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The Mercy Seat

From every stormy wind that blows,

From every swell-ing tide of woes;

There is a calm, a sure retreat;

It is found beneath the mercy seat.

There is a place where Jesus sheds

The oil of gladness on our heads;

A place than all beside more sweet;

It is the blood-stained mercy seat.

There is a scene where spirits blend,

And friend holds fellowship with friend;

Though sundered far, by faith we meet;

Around one common mercy seat.

There, there on eagle's wings we soar,

And time and sense seem all no more;

And heaven comes down our souls to greet;

And glory crowns the mercy seat.

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Till Death Do Us Apart

Text: Genesis 23:1-6

Key Verse: "Then Abraham rose from beside his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites. He said, I am an alien and a stranger among you" (Genesis 23:3-44).

I love the phrase Abraham rose from beside his dead wife. That signified squaring his shoulder, lifting up his eye, firming his step, and facing life again, and it is followed by a wonderful confession of faith: I am an alien and a stranger among you This is the word of a man who looks beyond all that earth has to offer and once more sees the city that has foundations whose builder and maker is God. Although Abraham has been weeping in the valley of the shadow of death, he somehow senses there can be no shadow without a light somewhere.

Have you learned that? When shadows come into your life, it is a sign that there must be light somewhere. Of course, if we turn our back on the light, then we ourselves are the ones who cause the shadow. I think people today are living in a constant shadow because their back is turned toward the light, and they themselves cast a pall upon their own existence. But if we face the light, looking at that light streaming from the city whose builder and maker is God, then the only shadow comes temporarily when some object obscures the light for a moment.

After all, that is what death is; it is simply a temporary obscuring of the light. But the man of faith lifts his eyes and looks beyond the shadow and sees the light still shining, and he says to these people, I am an alien and a stranger among you. Nothing satisfies me down here. I can never settle down among you. The whole land had been given to him by the promise of God, but the dead body of his wife before him reminds him that it is not yet God's time. His faith is not weakened by Sarah's death; rather, it is strengthened by it.

If Abraham had not remembered that he was a pilgrim and a stranger, his heart would have been crushed to despair by the death of his beloved life's companion. But Abraham lifts his eyes beyond this to the light from the city beyond. He remembers that nothing in this life was ever intended to fully meet the needs of the heart of the pilgrim stranger passing through.

Dr. Barnhouse told of a young woman whose husband had been killed in action during the war. When the telegram came, this Christian woman read it through and then said to her mother, I am going up to my room, and please don't disturb me. Her mother called her father at work and told him what had happened, and he came hurrying home and immediately went up to the room. His daughter didn't hear him come in, and he saw her kneeling beside her bed. The telegram was spread open on the bed before her. She was bowed over it. And as he stood there, he heard her say, Oh, my Father, my heavenly Father, The man turned around and went back down the stairs and said to his wife, She is in better hands than mine.

This is what faith does in the hour of grief. The very strength of Abraham's faith in the midst of anguish is that he is an alien and a stranger, a pilgrim passing through to that city that can alone satisfy the human heart.

***Culled from Ray Stedman's Ministry | www.raystedman.org

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So Send I You

So send I you - to labour unrewarded,
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown,
To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing
So send I you - to toil for Me alone

"As the Father hath sent Me,

So send I you"

So send I you - to bind the bruised and broken,
O'er wand'ring souls to work, to weep, to wake,
To bear the burdens of a world a-weary
So send I you - to suffer for My sake

So send I you - to loneliness and longing,
With heart a-hung'ring for the loved and known,
Forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one,
So send I you - to know My love alone

So send I you - to leave your life's ambition,
To die to dear desire, self-will resign,
To labour long and love where men revile you,
So send I you - to lose your life in Mine

So send I you - to hearts made hard by hatred,
To eyes made blind because they will not see,
To spend, tho' it be blood to spend and spare not
So send I you - to taste of Calvary.

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We Must Love All Mankind

Those who work the work of the Lord must not only love the brethren but also love all mankind. “Whoever mocks the poor,” said Solomon, “reproaches his Maker” (Prov. 17:5a). All men are created by God; therefore all are to be loved. If a worker does not have sufficient love for the brethren, or if he has the love of the brethren but no love for mankind in general, he is not qualified to serve God. For loving men or showing love to men is an essential quality to have in God’s service.

All who view people with annoyance and despise them are definitely unfit to be the Lord’s servants. We ought to see that though all men have fallen, they are nonetheless the object of the redemption of our Lord Jesus inasmuch as they were all created by God. In spite of their hardness of heart, the Holy Spirit still convicts them. The Lord Jesus came to this earth; He came to be a man. Like the rest of mankind, He grew up gradually from birth to maturity. For God intends to set up on earth a Model Man, a Representative Man – one upon whom rests all the purposes of God. After the ascension of the Lord Jesus, the church came into being, and yet the church is but the formation of a new man. The whole plan of redemption is to exalt and glorify men.

One day when we come to a deeper understanding of the word of God, we shall find the term “man” more palatable than even the term “children of God.” For we shall realize that God’s preordained plan and election is to obtain a glorious man. As we gradually perceive the place of man in God’s plan as constituting the focus of His counsel, and when we truly see God humbling Himself to be a man, we shall be impressed with the preciousness of man.

While our Lord Jesus was on earth He declared that “the Son of man also came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for man” (Mk. 10:45). The word the Lord says here is so plain; the Son of man comes to serve men. The Son of God becomes the Son of man on earth in order to serve men. Thus are we shown the attitude of the Lord Jesus towards mankind.

Many who work for God have a serious deficiency, which is, that they are totally lacking in the love of humanity. They lack the proper respect towards men, and they lack as well a knowledge of the value of man in God’s sight. Today we feel elated because we seem to have learned a little love for the brethren. Formerly, we loved no one; now, we can show our love towards the brethren by doing something for them.

No wonder we are high-spirited. Yet this is far from sufficient. We need to be so enlarged by God that we come to see that all people are to be loved and valued. Whether or not you are successful in your future work for God depends chiefly on your attitude towards the value of man. The depth of your work is to be measured by your interest and feeling towards men. By this we do not mean your interest in one or two clever or special persons. We simply mean your interest in “man” per se. This is a very significant issue.

The primary sense of Jesus’ phrase “the Son of man came” lies in the Lord’s tremendous interest in man—so much so as to become a man Himself. Such is His interest in man; but how about you? Many people do not meet your eyes; many people do not arouse your sympathetic feeling. Let us inquire, however, what the Lord’s attitude towards them is. He asserts that “the Son of man came.” Which means that He takes the place of a son of man among men. He is interested in man, He feels for man, and He values man. His interest in people is so great that He verily stands on the human level in serving mankind.

How strange that many brothers and sisters have no interest in man. Should this not arouse our righteous anger? Let us ask ourselves if we really understood what this word “The Son of man came” truly signifies. As we are in the presence of God we ought to see that this word of our Lord Jesus reveals His enormous interest in man. How can we ever think or say that we have no interest in the people we are with? Such an attitude is really preposterous.

Hence in the life of a workman of God there is another basic element in his character formation, which is, that he has an interest in all people. This, however, is not to suggest that he can choose whom among men he will be interested in—that he will only consider a particular person or persons whom he deems as interesting and lovable. No, he must be interested in man per se. For let us observe the characteristic of the Lord Jesus, that He had a keen interest in all of mankind.

There was such a love in Him towards all of humanity that He could say, “the son of Man came.” Suppose we go to a certain place to work for God. If we can say that we come to that place not to be served by the people there but to serve them, then our attitude is proper, our way is correct and our position is right. We shall be like Jesus, the Son of Man.

We should always have in mind that as the servants of God we must not withhold our love in a place until some Christian brethren arrive on the scene. All who hold this misconception—namely, that their love is to be reserved for the brethren only—are unable to do the work of God. Let it be known and unequivocally declared that the love of the brethren comes afterwards, and that it is a totally different proposition.

You need to have a love for the generality of mankind and compassion towards them. For John 3:16 makes plain that “God so loved the world.” What is “the world” here? It refers to all the people in the world, including the unsaved and ignorant. Those whom God loves are the people of the entire world. He loves everyone on the earth. If you are not interested in a person whom God loves, and furthermore, if you will love him only after he becomes a Christian brother, your disposition is quite different from the Lord’s; and therefore, you cannot serve God. Your heart will need to be expanded to such a degree that you feel that all people are to be loved. As long as this one or that one is a person, you love him. And only then shall you be qualified to serve God.

Taken from The Character of God’s Workman, by Watchman Nee; pp. 19-23; Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc.; New York; 1988.

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The Agony

Philosophers have measured mountains,

Fathom’d the depths of seas, of states, and kings,

Walk’d with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains

But there are two vast, spacious things,

The which to measure it doth more behove:

Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.

Who would know Sin, let him repair

Unto Mount Olivet; there shall he see

A man, so wrung with pains, that all his hair,

His skin, his garments, bloody be.

Sin is that Press and Vice, which forceth pain

To hunt his cruel food through every vein.

Who knows not Love, let him assay,

And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike

Did set again abroach; then let him say

If ever he did taste the like.

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,

Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.

*** Written by George Herbert ***

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