It is Not a Ritual

It Is Not a Ritual, It Is a Path to Holiness

Because it happens every week, it is easy for the partaking of the Lord’s Supper to become somewhat of a religious ritual and we fail to understand the part it plays in our spiritual growth. The abuse of this feast in Corinth brought dire consequences. “For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30). If one does not remember Jesus and discern His body as he partakes of the bread and cup, he eats and drinks damnation to his soul.

In the New Testament we remember Him, but in the Old Testament they remembered their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. From the time the Sabbath was given until the close of the Old Testament, there was not a weekly assembly, but a time when the Jews, their families, their Gentile neighbors, and even their animals stopped all activity and spent that day thinking about God delivering them from bondage. Tragically, by the time of the New Testament, it had become a day which involved the precise distance one could walk on that day, whether it was sinful to walk through a field of grain and eat the wheat in that field as they walked. It had become a day where one could water his donkey and help his ox get out of a ditch, but the Messiah was forbidden to heal on that day. It was so ritualistic that keeping the rites of that day became a symbol of righteousness!

The failure to keep that day holy by remembering their deliverance from Egypt was a primary reason for the Babylonian captivity that lasted seven decades. God described it this way: “Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned My holy things…and they have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them” (Ezek. 22:26). The sabbath was holy and so is the Lord’s supper.

So, what happens to us as we remember, not the sabbath, but the Lord in His feast? Peter described those who were failing to add the “Christian Graces” to their faith when he says, “For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten he was cleansed from his old sins” (2 Pet. 1:9). The Lord’s Supper is a weekly reminder of how He purged us from our sins and delivered us from the bondage of sin. It is a time we examine ourselves as we visit the cross. The Lord wanted Israel to remember deliverance from the bondage of Egypt every week and gave them a memorial day to ensure their spiritual growth. The Lord wants us to remember our deliverance from the bondage of sin every week and has given us a memorial feast to ensure our spiritual growth.

As you eat the bread and drink of the cup, never let it become a ritual. But let it be that time when you commune with Him around His table and visit the cross of our salvation.

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God is in Control Today and Always

God is in Control Today and Always

One of the great messages of the Old Testament is that God is in control, and He wants us to trust in Him. Control is an illusion that we tell ourselves that we have. Truthfully, I am in control of only one thing, myself. Even that is limited. Much of my body runs autonomically. I cannot turn off physical pain. My emotions are very hard to control. We are limited in the amount of control we have. Moreover, we often make the wrong decisions regarding the things that we can control, which results in less control. How much better is it to trust God! Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean to your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.”God is in control

Trusting God with control of my life removes anxiety, and I can be at peace trusting that God will do what is right. Philippians 4:6-7 says, “In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” This verse is about understanding that God is in control. We pray to God because He will actively respond to our requests in the absolute best way. When we trust Him, we will have no worries. This brings great peace, and allows me to understand my identity in Christ Jesus. When I am at peace, and know who I am, my heart and thoughts are perfectly guarded in Christ Jesus. This keeps me in a state of salvation so that I will be ready for Christ’s return.

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Billy and Evolutionary Hoaxes

Billy and Evolutionary Hoaxes

Little Billy cannot remember sitting through his cradle roll class—but make no mistake, he was there. In fact, Billy has been in Bible class every Sunday morning and Wednesday night since before he could even walk.

He can recite many of the accounts in the Bible—especially his two favorites: Noah and the ark, and Daniel in the lion’s den. Having grown up in the church, Billy obeyed the Gospel and was baptized when he was twelve. Even now, at age fourteen he never misses a worship service.Faith, Billy, and Doubt

But Billy is having some nagging feelings about his faith.

It’s not that he doesn’t believe in God, because he does. The problem is that he has never seen God—or Jesus for that matter. And to compound problems, he’s taking physical science this year at school. His science teacher spent an entire month on the topic of evolution, and showed the students pictures of how scientists allegedly know evolution is true.

In fact, Billy’s science textbook contains many pictures that certainly look like they prove evolution. Billy desperately wants to have a faith as strong as his parents’, but those pictures are making it harder and harder to believe that this world was created as it is described in Genesis chapter 1.

Billy could show the pictures to his parents, but he’s not sure how they would react. Would they get mad at his lack of faith? Would they simply dismiss the images? Would he cause them to lose some of their own faith? For several weeks, Billy struggles internally as he “goes through the motions” at his local church. After giving it a great deal of thought, he just decides to do nothing.

To me, the scenario above is one of the scariest for parents. A child is struggling with questions pertaining to his or her faith, and instead of seeking answers from parents, the child simply remains silent—and all the while, his or her faith slowly begins to crumble.

Those pictures with which Billy is struggling are real. The bookshelves in my office are full of biology textbooks that contain many such pictures. The problem is that many of those pictures are dishonest. In some cases, they are of outright frauds. Without an honest explanation, young people are tricked into thinking that the case for evolution is much stronger than it really is.

Let me encourage parents to be proactive.

Talk to your children. Show them the evolutionary icons that we know are false. It is my hope that a proactive approach to some of these hoaxes will prevent your children’s faith from crumbling years from now.

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Whose Reality Will We Accept?

Whose Reality Will We Accept?

Humans have a way of trying to impose their own beliefs on the world and seeking to change it to their own desires. Much of these efforts are denials of what is really real. It is a sure path for failure. What is really real? Ultimately, God is what is real, and when we fight reality, we are fighting Him. Reality isn’t what we want it to be. It is what God wants it to be. Disappointment happens when our expectations don’t match reality. We become disillusioned and may even fall into despair. Some just decide it isn’t worth it to stick around anymore. There is a better way.

Instead of seeking to change the world to match our desires, we should change ourselves to match God’s world. This is God’s message to us in the Bible. Sin is not just “moral” failure; it is a failure of perspective on our place in God’s creation. That’s what Paul is seeking to get across in Romans 1:21: “because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

What happens when the heart is darkened? We try to change reality to conform to our desires instead of conforming our desires to reality. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). When we transform ourselves to God’s will, we prove God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will. That is, we show it, in our lives, to be true. It’s not that God’s will is false if we don’t do this, rather, our own lives are.

God bless you, and I love you.

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A String on Your Finger

A String on Your Finger

I am not sure where the idea originated, but it has been around for decades. If there was something really important you needed to remember, you were told to put a string (or ribbon) on your finger to remind you. I am sure other cultures may have similar figures of speech and times have changed in our world. More recently we talk about putting it on our calendar or putting a reminder on our cell phone.

It is remarkable that the Jews evidently did something very much like this. When Moses gave the law, he told the Jews to do two things to keep God’s word before them. They were to write them on the gates and doors of their houses or to write God’s words and put them in containers and wear these containers on their hands or around their heads, just above their eyes.

Moses said, “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your doors” (Deut. 6:8-9—in the New Testament these containers or frontlets are called phylacteries—Matt. 23:5). They did not put strings on their fingers, they wore them before their eyes.

Evidently, they also wrote words on their hands. Have you not at some time or another used a pen to write important numbers or details on your hand when you could not find paper you might use? Isaiah indicates the Jews did this when he described how and where God wrote His message.

What was that message that was so important that He wrote it down on His hand? It was written in that part of Isaiah where he told the Jews that they were headed for captivity, and he then began to give a detailed description of the coming of the Messiah. When they were in captivity, they might have felt that God had forgotten them. Such was not the case for after the captivity of the Messiah, the suffering Servant would come.

What was that message God wrote? Perhaps if we knew what He wrote it might help us know and understand our God even better. What was that message? Read these words slowly and carefully. “Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands” (Isa. 49:16). God had written the name of His people on the palms of His hand!

God had not forgotten Israel, and He has not forgotten us! It was not a string on a finger—it was your name written on the palm of His hand. As I thought about all of this, I could not help but remember the words of Thomas about not believing in Jesus unless he saw the nail prints in His hand. As you think about the fact that God remembers us, look at the hands of Jesus. Figuratively, your name is beside those wounds in His hands!

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