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2017 40 Days of Prayer, Day 33

The Abiding Presence of God:
A Life of Complete Dependence

Day 33

“Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies;” Romans 8:33

Justified
Justification is a term that relates to our legal standing before God. The moment we put our faith in Christ, God sees us as righteous. Though most people do not realize this truth when they become a believer, God does a monumental legal work in the midst of their salvation. Few testimonies concerning salvation include a statement about the divine work of justification. However, salvation includes the spectacular truth that we are righteous in the eyes of God. The moment a person believes, God changes their legal status before His tribunal. Every person must stand before God and give an account of their “right standing” in the eyes of God in order to enter heaven. There is no group ticket into heaven. You cannot put your faith in a parent, a spouse, a preacher (trust me, putting your faith in a preacher is bad idea), or any other caring person. Even though God’s calling may come through a variety of messengers, none of these messengers can “justify” your presence before God for eternity. In order to get into heaven, a person must be like Christ. This transformation is not merely physical. Though it is true that we will receive a resurrected body just like Jesus, God requires more than a mere physical transformation in order to be properly fitted for heaven. We must be like Jesus in His moral perfection. Jesus Christ is absolutely perfect. He is holy and righteous. He is holy in His essential character and He is righteous in that He perfectly fulfilled the Law in the way He lived. Anyone wishing to go to heaven must also be holy and righteous.

You may rightly say, “I am not perfect. I am not righteous. I am not holy. This seems like bad news.” It is bad news apart, at least apart from Christ. In Christ, we stand before God as absolutely perfect. When we put our faith in Christ, God sees us as He sees His own Son. He sees His Son’s holiness, perfection and righteousness. When God sees us, He sees His Son’s righteousness of accomplishing every good work given to Him by His Father. When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, God performs a legal transfer. He grants the gift of the sinless perfection of His Son to the unholy sinner. When a person believes in Christ, God grants to the unrighteous sinner the righteous accomplishments of His Son. We stand before God in Christ. Justification describes the divine transaction of crediting Christ’s holiness and Christ’s righteousness to us when we believe. We are not perfect on our own. In fact, we continue to struggle with sin. However, even in our struggle with sin, through faith in Christ, God still sees us as righteous. Luther said it this way. We are “simul justis et peccator.” We are simultaneously righteous and sinner. We are righteous in the eyes of God while still in our sinful condition because God has transferred the righteousness of His Son to our account. God has also transferred our sin to the cross of Christ. When God sees the sins of the believer in Christ, God sees those sins as paid in full at the cross of Christ. There is a double transfer. There is the transfer of our sin to Christ at the cross and a transfer of His righteousness to us. Knowledge of this incredible theological truth is not necessary to become a Christian. Few of us realize this truth when we believe. God performs this work on the basis of His Son and on the basis of our simple faith in His Son’s work. All of this occurs the very moment we believe, whether we realize it or not.

Prayer Focus
God, I pray for this message of justification to be heralded throughout the world. I long for every person to know what You have done in Your Son. You have taken me, a rebellious, selfish sinner, and declared me just before You. Help me to open my mouth to share that wonderful news to others. Forgive me for my silence. Set the priorities of the church in such a way that Your name would be known in all the earth. Forgive Your church for failing to make this the mission of our ministries. May the meditations of my heart be acceptable to You.

From DL Moody’s Secret Power
THE CLIMAX SIN

That is the sin of the world, unbelief in the Creator. Why, a great many people think that unbelief is a type of misfortune. However, they do not know, if you will allow me the expression, that it is the damning sin of the world today. That is what unbelief is, the mother of all sin. There would not be a drunkard walking the streets, if it were not for unbelief. There would not be a harlot walking the streets, if it were not for unbelief. There would not be a murderer, if it was not for unbelief. Unbelief is the germ of all sin.

Don’t think for a moment that it is a misfortune, but just bear in mind it is an awful sin, and may the Holy Spirit convict every reader that unbelief is making God a liar. Many a man has been knocked down on the streets because someone has told him he was a liar. Unbelief is telling God the lie. That is the plain English of it. Some people seem to boast of their unbelief. They seem to think it is quite respectable to be an infidel and doubt God’s Word. They will vainly boast and say, “I have intellectual difficulties. I can’t believe.” Oh that the Spirit of God may come and convict men of sin! That is what we need - His convicting power and I am so thankful that God has not put that into our hands. We have not to convict men. If we had, I would get discouraged, and give up preaching, and go back to the business world within forty-eight hours. It is my work to preach and hold up the Cross and testify of Christ. But it is His work to convict men of sin and lead them to Christ.

One thing I have noticed, that some conversions don’t amount to anything. That if a man professes to be converted without conviction of sin, he is one of those stony-ground hearers who don’t bring forth much fruit. The first little wave of persecution, the first breath of opposition, and the man is back in the world again. Let us pray, dear Christian reader, that God may carry on a deep and thorough work, that men may be convicted of sin so that they cannot rest in unbelief. Let us pray God it may be a thorough work in the land.

I would rather see a hundred men thoroughly converted, truly born of God, than to see a thousand professed conversions where the Spirit of God has not convicted of sin. Don’t let us cry “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” Don’t go to the man who is living in sin, and tell him all he has to do is to stand right up and profess, without any hatred for sin. Let us ask God first to show every man the plague of his own heart, that the Spirit, may convict them of sin. Then will the work in our hands be real, and deep, and abide the fiery trial which will try every man’s labor.

Thus far, we have found the work of the Spirit is to impart life, to implant hope, to give liberty, to testify of Christ, to guide us into all truth, to teach us all things, to comfort the believers, and to convict the world of sin.
 

2017 40 Days of Prayer, Day 32

The Abiding Presence of God:
A Life of Complete Dependence

Day 32

“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?”  Romans 8:32

Consider the Evidence

The death of Christ communicates much about the nature of God. Great focus has been given to the physical suffering of Christ on our behalf. He suffered greatly in physical pain in His crucifixion.  “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed,” I Peter 2:24.  “He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed,” Isaiah 53:5.  In addition to the physical pain of the cross, Christ also suffered substantial emotional pain.  “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried,” Isaiah 53:4.  Consider the emotional weight of His experience, rejected by His people, abandoned by His friends, betrayed and denied by His closed companions.  Beyond the physical and emotional aspects of His suffering, Christ also bore the judgment for our sins in His suffering.  As He died, Christ cried out, “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me,” Matthew 27:46. Paul wrote that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us,” Galatians 3:13.  Something happened within the Godhead during Christ’s final moments on the cross.  Prior to this historic moment, for all eternity the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had been in perfect communion, perfect fellowship, possessing perfect love for one another.  For a brief, yet monumental moment, the Father severed that communion with His Son.  Instead of communion, Jesus Christ experienced the curse of our sin.  Despite the relatively brief period of time (three hours or less), this great suffering went beyond any human experience.  Christ's physical and emotional suffering, though greater than anything most humans will ever experience, are something we can relate to in our own physical and emotional pain.  However, the cross also demonstrates something further than physical and emotional suffering.  The cross displays the depth of spiritual suffering.  God placed Christ under judgment for our sins.  “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him,” II Corinthians 5:21.  When Paul said, He who “did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all,” he had in mind the Father’s judgment of Christ in our place.  The judgment of God fell on His own Son so that we might be saved.  In the cross, we see the seriousness of our sin and the hopelessness of our condition.  In the cross, we also observe the depth of the love of God.  God gave up His own Son in order to deliver us from the consequences of our sin.  Why would God do this?  Love.  Love motivated God to act this way.  This verse reminds us of what Paul said earlier in this letter to the church at Rome, in Romans 5:8.  “But God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were still sinner, Christ died for us.”  Christ death on our behalf demonstrates the love God has for us. 

Logical Conclusion

If God would offer up His own Son for us, then we can trust Him.  If God would do that for us then He can be trusted in all other matters concerning our daily lives.  This does not guarantee a life of ease.  The remaining verses of this chapter describe a difficult existence in this life for Christians.  However, the knowledge of God’s amazing love means that we can have confidence in what God is doing even in the midst of our difficulties.  The last verse of this chapter affirms God’s love for us, nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 8:39.  He will provide for our us no matter what obstacles we face.  Do you trust Him?  He gave His Son for our salvation.  How can we not trust Him with every situation we face? 

Prayer Focus

God, I worship You for Your grace and mercy.  Thank You for the sacrifice of Your Son on my behalf.  I praise You for Your continual presence in my life, supplying my needs and ministering to me in my weaknesses.  Help me to trust You today with every situation of my life.

From DL Moody’s Secret Power

THE FAITHFUL FRIEND

The Holy Spirit tells a man of his faults, in order to lead him to a better life. In John 16:8 we read: “He is to reprove the world of sin.” Now, there are a class of people who don’t like this part of the Spirit’s work. Do you know why? Because He convicts them of sin. They don’t like that. What they want is someone to speak comforting words and make everything pleasant. To keep everything all quiet and tell them there is peace when there is war. To tell them it is light when it is dark, and tell them everything is growing better. That the world is getting on amazingly in goodness, that it is growing better all the time and that is the kind of preaching they seek for.

Men think they are a great deal better than their fathers were.  That suits human nature, for it is full of pride. Men will strut around and say, “Yes, I believe that. The world is improving. I am a good deal better man than my father was. My father was too strict. He was one of those old Puritanical men who was so rigid. O, we are getting on. We are more liberal.”

This is the kind of preaching, which some dearly love, and there are preachers who tickle such itching ears. When you bring the Word of God to bear upon them, and when the Spirit drives it home, then men will say: “I don’t like that kind of preaching. I will never go to hear that man again!” Sometimes they will get up and stomp their way out of church before the speaker gets through. They don’t like it. But when the Spirit of God is at work, He convicts men of sin. “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:” Not because men swear and lie and steal and get drunk and murder *“because they believe not in Me.” (*John 16:8-9 NKJV)

2017 40 Days of Prayer, Day 31

The Abiding Presence of God:
A Life of Complete Dependence

Day 31

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”  Romans 8:31

God Is for Us

What an encouragement!  God is for us.  God is not against us.  He is for us.  Consider all that God has done.  He saved us through His infinitely glorious plan.  He saved us by giving up His own Son so that we might be adopted into His divine family.  All of these things He determined to do before one atom came into being; long before the sun, moon, and the stars existed.  His salvation plan involves making rebellious, God-hating sinners into His very own children.  He adopts us, justifies us, and glorifies us.  He fills us with His Spirit in order to comfort us in trials and to purify us in our battles with sin.  He gives us the hope of everlasting life with Christ.  Paul, after articulating these truths, asked this question: “What then shall we say to these things?”  What shall we say?  We say, “God is on our side.”  These truths protect us from our experiences.  These truths protect us from our own feelings.  Our own feelings betray us.  Our emotions cause us to forget all that God has done.  We allow hurt feelings to dictate our joy.  Something goes poorly during the day and thoughts of our own inadequacies dominate our minds.  If we burn our dinner, our kids make a mess, we lock our keys in the car, our boss is rude, or if we look in the mirror and hate what we see, we must remember that these temporary assaults on our confidence pale when compared to the confidence that is ours because of what God has done.  He is for us!

Prayer Focus

God, forgive me for letting the cares of this world and the struggles of daily life bring me to such a lowly state of mind.  Please bring Your truth to bear on my day.  Fill my mind with Your truths.  Use the truth of Your everlasting love to guard my heart.  Protect me from the emotions that war against the Your truth.  Thank You for saving me and adopting me into Your family.  You are for me and not against me.  In the name of Christ, I pray, amen.

From DL Moody’s Secret Power

LONG AND SHORT SIGHT

The Holy Spirit brings to our mind what God has in store for us. I heard a man, some time ago, speaking about Abraham. He said “Abraham was not tempted by the well-watered plains of Sodom, for Abraham was what you might call a long-sighted man. He had his eyes set on the city which had foundation ‘whose Builder and Maker is God.’”  But there are many people in the Church who are very short sighted. They only see things right around them that they think are good. Abraham was long-sighted. He had glimpses of the celestial city. Moses was longsighted. He left the palaces of Egypt and identified himself with God’s people, poor people, who were slaves. But he had something in view. He could see something God had in store.  Again, there are some people who are long-sighted and short-sighted at the same time.  I think the Church is full of this kind of people. They want one eye for the world and the other for the Kingdom of God. Therefore, everything is blurred. One eye is long and the other is short; all is confusion. The Church is filled with that sort of people. Stephen was long-sighted. He looked clear into heaven. They couldn’t convince him, even when he was dying, that Christ had not ascended to heaven. “But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,” and he looked clear into heaven,” Acts 7:55 KJV.  The world had no temptation for him.

I tell you, when the Spirit of God is on us the world looks very empty. The world has a very small hold upon us, and we begin to let go our hold of it. When the Spirit of God is on us we will just let go the things of time and lay hold of things eternal. This is the Church’s need today. We want the Spirit to come in mighty power, and consume all the vile dross there is in us. Oh, that the Spirit of fire may come down and burn everything in us that is contrary to God’s blessed Word and Will.

In John 14:16, we read of the Comforter. This is the first time He is spoken of as the Comforter. Christ had been their Comforter. God had sent Him to comfort the sorrowing. It was prophesied of Him, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted.”  Luke 4:18a NKJV

You can’t heal the broken-hearted without the Comforter, but the world would not have the first Comforter. So they rose up, took Him to Calvary and put Him to death. But on the way, He said, “I will send you another Comforter. You shall not be comfortless. Be of good cheer, little flock. It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

All these sweet passages are brought to the remembrance of God’s people, and they help us to rise out of the fog and mist of this world. O, what a comforter is the Holy Spirit of God!