Normally these devotionals are reflections on the sermon of the week.  However, this week, I want to write on a different subject . . . a topic that is more in line with this weeks events.  I am writing this article on Monday morning of the mid-term elections.  I do not know what is going to happen tomorrow.  I do not know who will win or who will lose.  But I would urge anyone who is reading this blog to do three things this week.

First and foremost, pray.  As always our country and our leaders need our prayers.  Despite what some histories tell us, our country was founded on religious freedom.  And even though most of our founding fathers and early colonists had Judeo-Christian backgrounds, they did not want to impose their beliefs on everyone.  They did however use Judeo-Christian principles and values in forming what we now know as the Untied States.  And prayer was something they did regularly in their decision making and shaping.  And prayer is just as important today in keeping America on track.  I truly believe that without consent and consistent prayer, our nation will cease to be.  Scriptures even command us to pray for the leaders ruling over us.  And I do not find any where in the Bible that says that we have to agree with those leaders before we pray for them.  So this week, I want for everyone reading to make a conscience effort to pray for our leader from the White House down.  And especially pray for those men and women who are newly elected (whether Republican or Democrat).  Pray that God would fill them with wisdom and humility.  After all, ultimately it is not the voters that put them into office, but God who see fit to raise up and depose leaders (Dan 4:17).

Secondly, I would urge everyone to vote on Nov 9th.  Do not think your vote does not count or that the mid-terms are not as important as the presidential elections. Do not think that just because to live in a state or area that is dominated by one political party or other that you will be “outvoted”.  Vote anyway or your voice will not be heard.  And do not be lazy or wonder who to vote for.  There are many ways to find out what the various positions and beliefs of the people running for office.  Be informed and vote for the people you think will best represent you.  If you do not know where to vote, find out.  A little research will go a long way.  And remember, no politician or party is perfect.  They have all made mistakes and might not be exactly what you are looking for or believe. Do not let that get you down or scare you away from the polls.  Vote for the person you think will best fill the job they are being asked to do.

Third, Support whoever is voted into office.  Whining or protesting or threatening does you and this country no good.  This also goes back to the first request about praying for our leaders and realizing that God is ultimately in charge of this election.  So if your party does not win, do not worry or wonder if somehow God lost control.  Support them with you money (taxes) and with your prayers.  Write letters informing them of your continued prayers and vision for how you would like them to rule our country.  They have good days and bad days and need encouragement every so often to keep them from discouragement.

Pray, vote, and support (and pray some more).  And through it all God will be honored and glorified.

HELL IS REAL!  And one day God will sentence everyone who has broken God’s laws to Hell.  This sometimes is a hard message to swallow.  With all the sermons these days on the love of God (which is another hat of God that I will preach in two weeks), we sometimes forget or ignore the fact that God is still Just.  And a just God cannot and will not allow those who have broken God’s laws into heaven.  God Justice cannot do it.  And God’s love (despite what some people think) will not allow it either.  The fact of the matter is when we die here on earth (or are raised to heaven at the end times) will stand before the Judgment seat and will be judged.  Those who know Jesus as their lawyer (if you follow the courtroom metaphors) will be declared justified and free from the penalty of death.  Those who try to make it to heaven on their own (without this lawyer), will be sentenced to die.  It is all spelled out in black and white in Revelation 20.  We also have hints of it in Matthew 25 with the sheep and the goats parable (sheep and goats are shepherd imagery that we will look at when I preach on God as Shepherd (tentative date Dec 30th)).

  So the question the question is, who is your Lawyer?  Jesus or are you going to represent yourself?  Because the fact of the matter is we have all broken God’s law.  As mentioned in the book of James, if we break even one of God’s laws, we are guilty of breaking it all.  We are all transgressors of God’s laws. And no amount of legal wrangling will get you off.  No technicalities, no  mental illness defense, no nothing.  The only way to be pronounced innocent is if you have accepted Jesus’ death on the cross as your payment for your sins.  Because Jesus suffered and died the death of an innocent man, His payment of death can be put onto your verdict.  Jesus can say to the Judge, “I paid the penalty for this person’s sin”.  So even though we are guilty, God can treat us “just as if I’d” never sinned. (Justified).

  If you would like this kind of payment put on your account, you can simply talk to God saying, “God. I know that I am guilty.  I have sinned against you and have no defense for it.  But I know that Jesus died for me.  He paid the price for my sin.  Please accept His penalty for the one I know I deserve.  I want to have Jesus as my lawyer and I claim Him as such right now. Amen”

  If you prayed that prayer, please contact me.  I would love to give you more information on how you can live a justified life before God.  Email me at timclaassen@truevine.net.

This last week we saw snow for the first time this fall.  And almost every time it snows (at least when it first starts to snow), I am reminded about the purity that God can bring to a dirty life.  No matter how much we try to scrub the dirt and filth away from our lives, we are still dirty in God’s eyes.  It is only when we wash with the blood of Jesus will our lives ever become clean and pure again.  James Nicholson was correct when he penned these words:

Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole; I want Thee forever to live in my soul. Break down every idol, cast out every foe — Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Lord Jesus, look down from Your throne in the skies and help me to make a complete sacrifice. I give up myself and whatever I know — Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Lord Jesus, for this I most humbly entreat; I wait, blessed Lord, at Thy crucified feet. by faith, for my cleansing I see Your blood flow — Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Lord Jesus, before You I patiently wait; Come now and within me a new heart create. to those who have sought You, You never said, “No” — Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than now– Now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

  God has revealed Himself to us through the Bible and the person of Jesus Christ who came to show us who God is.   We have been given the Holy Spirit to continue to be enlightened through God’s word to our hearts and live.  We as Christians have been given us His light.  And because of this we are to show others the light inside of us.  Many people who live and work around us are in darkness.  They may not have been raised to read the Bible or learn about Jesus.  Many people do not know a God who wants to have a personal relationship with them.  It is up to us to tell them this.  We are to be God’s light to shine into their darkness.  We are to bring hope and life to a world without light.  Without us doing our part, this world will continue to be dark and blinded to the reality they there is a God who loves them and deeply wants to have a relationship with.  Go and be that light!

  As I mentioned in my sermon, I love this Hat of God as King.  Because many times in my life, my world (and the world around me) seems out of control.  So I am glad and take comfort in the fact that God is still on His throne.  The world was not just made and then left on its own.  God still reigns.  He has the power and the authority to control not just on a big scale (stars and planets and the rest of the universe) but he is also in control of what happens in our daily, personal lives.  His authority and power comes right down to the individual level.  And He coordinates things in ways that I still find amazing.  One example of this is how He brought about this series of sermons.  I planned several months ago what I am preaching on now.  Through prayer and guidance from the Holy Spirit, I decided that I would preach this series on the Hats of God.  Since then I have begun attending Bible Study and Fellowship group (BSF).  The last several weeks have lined up almost identical to what I have been preaching.  And today, during my devotions just before typing this devotion, I came across this quote from Charle Swindoll, “He is the sovereign God of the univers and He’s never once lost control.  He strengthens and He secures His people.  Those who know their God operate in such a context of confidence, they can face whatever . . . and ‘disply strength and take action'”  God’s sovereignty gives me the confidence that no matter what the world throws at me, I will be able to handle it because God power in and through me.

      I am getting to the devotions a bit later in the week than I normally do.  I try to get the sermon of the week and this devotion posted to the website on the following Monday.  I got the sermon uploaded this week on Monday, but then my time after that was filled with other things that I felt were more pressing.  But looking back at what I filled my time with these last couple of days, I see that they were not as important as I treated them and I could have put them off another week.  My priorities were not where they should be.  I am sure I am not alone in setting my priorities incorrectly at times.  On occasion, I will put of harder things until later in order to do easier things now.  And it is typical that the easy things are usually the kind of things that do not need my attention right away.

     And as I thought about these struggles I have sometimes in prioritizing my time, I thought about how I struggle in prioritizing spiritual things.  I find myself putting off things God wants in my life for things I want to do or I find easier to focus on.  I also thought how quickly we can accomplish things we find enjoyable instead of focusing what would be more beneficial.  Are there some beneficial things God wants you to focus on this week that you have been putting off?  Listen and obey the leading of the Holy Spirit and take a new look at how your priorities line up with His.

This week we had 13 men from Teen Challenge come and share with us through music and testimony.  And there were several thoughts I got from them that I want us to ponder some more on in this next week.  One young man said, “Don’t bite at the bait of pleasure, until you know there’s no hook beneath it.”  Many times the pleasure that the world provides have hidden hooks.  But the pleasure we find in God is hookless.  He also said, “Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of no where, but sometimes in the middle of no where you find yourself.”   Often times we can only find God when we are at our lowest.  But God can take us at our lowest and raise us up to live with him in the highest.  “A Pessimist sees a difficulty in every opportunity but a Optimist sees an opportunity in every difficulty.”  I hope these words will resonate with you this week.

  I have been thinking about Groveland Missionary Church and it’s faithful service to the Lord for the last 122 years.  Much has happened and much has changed in those years.  But one thing that has not changed is that God is Faithful and He has been so good to this church down through the years.  He has been with this congregation through the ups and downs, during the good times and the struggles.  Many people have come in and out of these doors.  Many souls have been forever changed.  Many seeds have been sown and many harvests have come and gone.  But I see great things ahead for this church.  The Law of the Harvest states that you reap what you have sown, that you reap only after you have sown, and that you reap more than you have sown.  I see a great harvest just ahead for Groveland Missionary Church.  But the harvest needs workers to bring in the harvest.  It would be wonderful if the harvest could reap itself, but that is not the case.  As one book says, “The Cross must be raised in the marketplace as well as on the steeples of the churches. We cannot hope to get our entire communities into our churches to hear evangelistic sermons (as valid and proven as this method of evangelism is). But we can hope to get our churches (born again believers; devoted disciples) out into every area of our communities.  Answering the Call to Evangelism: Spreading the Good News to Everyone (p. 32).  And as this book later explains, “These principles of evangelism worked for Jesus (John 4:39–42)! They will work for you too. But like all rules for success, they will not work unless you do. If you will cultivate the ground and plant the seed, you can expect to reap the resulting harvest for Christ. Evangelism is not optional. We are commanded to serve the Lord by reconciling sinful man with a holy and loving God. What are we doing about it?” (p. 39).

In preparing the message for Sunday, I came across two great sermons by Charles Spurgeon, “The Sinner’s Friend” and “The Very Friend You Need” and I used several long quote that were packed with goodness.  And since they were so long and so loaded with great material, I thought that I would use this space to share them with you again.  I think it will take you the rest of the week to digest these mouthfuls.

 

“His whole soul was filled with love to men while they were yet sinners and enemies to himself. It was this that made him quit his Father’s court, and all the royalties of heaven, to come and be born in a stable, and laid in a manger, and to labour in a carpenter’s shop, and to become the poorest of the poor, and the most despised and rejected of men. All this was because he loved men, not only as men, but as guilty men.”

Spurgeon, C. H. (1896). “The Very Friend You Need.” In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 42, p. 460). London: Passmore & Alabaster.

 

“You do not find him standing at a distance, issuing his mandates and his orders to sinners to make themselves better, but you find him coming among them like a good workman who stands over his work; he takes his place where the sin and the iniquity are, and he personally comes to deal with it. He does not write out a prescription and send by another hand his medicines with which to heal the sickness of sin, but he comes right into the lazar-house, touches the wounded, looks at the sick; and there is healing in the touch; there is life in the look. The great Physician took upon himself our sicknesses and bare our infirmities, and so proved himself to be really the sinner’s friend.”

Spurgeon, C. H. (1864). The Sinner’s Friend. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 10, p. 110). London: Passmore & Alabaster.

 

“The Lord Jesus Christ was not “a friend of publicans and sinners” in the sense of being in the least like them. Our proverb says, “A man is known by the company he keeps,” but you could not have known the Lord Jesus Christ by the company he kept. It would be strictly true to say of him that he was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners,” that even when he was present with them, and received them, and ate with them, yet still there was a grave distinction between him and them, so that you could never consider him to be of the same class with them. No, brethren, his bitterest enemies could not truly lay any sin to his charge; they had to hire false witnesses to make up an accusation against him, and when they had made it up, there was really nothing in it. The quick-eyed prince of this world, Satan himself, could find nothing sinful in him, and the princes of this world, whose eyes, through their malice, had become like the eyes of lynxes, yet could not discover anything for which they could blame him. He was not like them, he was not like any sinner, he was not like the drunkard, he was not like the adulterer, he was not like the thief, nor was he in the least like the hypocritical Pharisee, who, with all his attempts to appear righteous, was not really like the Saviour. So, Christ was not “a friend of publicans and sinners” in the sense of being like them.”

Spurgeon, C. H. (1896). “The Very Friend You Need.” In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 42, p. 458). London: Passmore & Alabaster.

 

And here is another one that I did not have time to add into my message:

“Our Saviour proved his love to men in his very coming to this earth, as I have already said; but when he was here, he went about doing good. He never was invited to do good to any, and refused, however lowly—and, let me add, however polluted they might be; they were always welcome to his benediction. He went about preaching the gospel which could elevate those who were fallen, and comfort those who were despairing. And at the last he proved his love in the highest conceivable manner. If a good shepherd laid down his life for his sheep, and in doing so was proved to be good, did not Jesus do so? Let me quote those blessed words of the apostle Peter,—there is more music in them than in all Homer’s poetry,—“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” That we might live, he died. That we might be cleansed from our iniquities, the Lord hath laid them all on him. O sinners, Christ is indeed your friend, since, by his death, he has already done for you all that almighty love could suggest, and omnipotent love could carry out. Yea, and rising from the grave, and mounting to his throne, he made intercession for the transgressors, and he continues still to prove his love to sinners by daily pleading for them. The prayer he commenced on earth has never closed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Oh, yes, he is intensely, deeply affectionate within himself, but he is abundantly and practically the friend of sinners by what he does for them! How I wish that some of you would prove this by going to him, that he might exercise upon you all the matchless skill of his inimitable grace!

Spurgeon, C. H. (1896). “The Very Friend You Need.” In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 42, pp. 460–461). London: Passmore & Alabaster.

Sunday we saw Jesus as a party animal.  And I showed a slide that included all the parties Jesus attended, spoke on, or mentioned in the gospel.  And the 20 different parties could not fit on one slide and were in small print on the two slides, so I thought about reproducing that list of parties here so you can check it out for yourselves.  I tried not to count the same party mentioned in multiple gospels more than once, so I cross referenced the parties from all the gospels. They are listed in gospel order since it is often difficult to do chronological among the gospels.

 

With Magi: Matt 2:11-12 With Matthew and other tax collectors and sinners: Matt 9:10; Mark 2:15; Luke 5:29-31 With 5000: Matt 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-15 With 4000: Matt 15:29-39; Mark 8:1-13 Triumphal entry: Matt 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-44 Parable of Party: Matt 22:1-14 Parable of 10 virgins: Matt 25:1-13 With Simon the Leper: Matt 26:6-13; Mark 14:1-9; Luke 7:36-50 Last Supper: Matt 26:17-35; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:7-38; John 13-17 With Shepherds: Luke 2:16-20

With Mary and Martha: Luke 10:38 With “Prominent Pharisee”: Luke 14:1-14 Parable of Feast: Luke 14:15-24 Parable of Lost: Luke 15 (actually 3 different stories/parables) With Zacchaeus: Luke 19:1-9 In Emmaus: Luke 24:30 After the resurrection: Luke 24:36-49 At Wedding: John 2:1-11 With Lazarus and family: John 12:1-11 After resurrection on beach: John 21:1-14

 

I defined “party” as an intentional group of people gathered for the expressed purpose fellowship, eating, and/or celebrating.  So I included both birth stories (wise men and shepherds) as well as the feeding of the 5000 and 4000.  I also added the triumphal entry (celebration) and the disciples on the road to Emmaus (eating).  I did not include the Jewish feasts mentioned in John’s gospel because even though Jesus came to Jerusalem for the feasts, it did not specify that Jesus participated in any of them.  It should also be noted that 13 of the 20 parties listed are in Luke’s gospel and that is even when I group the 3 parables of the Lost things in Luke 15 are grouped together as one. (And 8 of those 13 are only found in Luke).  I think Luke must have been a party animal too. :>)