Boldness is a result of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul here tells the Thessalonian believer that even though it had cost him and those with him plenty to share the Gospel of Jesus, his boldness did not wane even in conflict. The word “boldness” here speaks of being frank, outspoken, assured, confident, and having a plainness of speech. How the world around us needs that kind of witness today! Those who share the good news of Jesus with boldness. How about it? Pray that today God may set before you an open door to minister the Gospel with boldness. I will be praying for you today as well.
Go tell it on the mountains…
Pastor Jack Abeelen
The enemy’s job is to get you to distrust God. He sends one fiery dart after another to tempt you so that you disobey God’s Word. He wants to get you to believe that God is holding back joy from you, or that a particular sin will make you feel better if you just indulge a little. These fiery temptations can produce some immense heat when it comes to making a decision on who we will trust. Will we trust God and His ways or will we trust in the enemy’s honey-dipped lies?
Here Paul tells us to take up the shield of faith and this shield represents our basic daily trust in the Lord. Every living soul puts their faith or trust in something or someone every day of their lives. Right now I trust that my keyboard won’t start sparking and my fingers get burned. That might be a lame illustration, but it’s true.
A great deal of our spiritual success comes from simply putting our faith in God. Trusting in His word not just with our mouths, but with our actions. Our actions prove our faith and when we truly trust God, then we will do what He says. And those honey-dipped lies that Satan shoots at us to cause us to doubt, they will be quenched by the truth.
Pastor Jason Witt
These words are the apex of Jesus’ high-priestly prayer spoken just hours before He was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane. They disclose the heart of Jesus for all of us who have trusted in His name. More than anything else, Jesus wants us to behold and enjoy His glory. It is what we were made for. It is God’s great purpose for everything.
There are many reasons why we may have initially come to Jesus. We may have come because of the many benefits of salvation: heaven instead of hell, pearly gates, golden streets, or seeing grandma again. Or perhaps we were weighed down by the guilt of our own sin, and chose Jesus out of a healthy fear of hell. One of the motives behind my own decision at the age of five or six was just a desire to please my parents.
But as we come to know the Bible and mature in Christ, we come to see how beautiful and compellingly glorious He is—and how unworthy we are. We come to treasure Jesus more than any other thing in the world. We begin to see Him as infinitely valuable, worthy of our love, deserving the highest praise, and our deepest sacrifice. Acting upon this realization is what it means to store up treasure in heaven.
When we see Jesus face to face in all His glory, and the prayer of Jesus is finally answered, the heavens will resound with the joyful praises of His bride. Let us live today in light of this future glory.
Tom Day
As Isaiah is called to be a prophet, he has a vision. We can read about it in the verses before the one above. When Isaiah came face to face with the Lord, he realized that he was a sinner. He realized that the Lord is holy and perfect. He knew that he was not worthy to speak to the Lord because of his sinfulness. If we are familiar with this section of scripture, we know that a seraphim flew to him and placed a hot coal in his mouth, saying, “Your iniquity is taken away, your sin purged.”
Isaiah had it right. We can’t just come to the Lord on our own. We need to have our iniquity taken away and our sins purged. God is Holy and we can’t approach Him any other way. The good news is that He sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. Because of this, He casts our sins as far as the east is to the west (Psalm 103:12). We can now come boldly into the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).
Joshua Navarro
Shoes play a large role in our life, despite the fact that we really don’t pay any attention to them. But if you look in your closet, I bet you have at least five different pairs and when you walk out the door, you’re wearing at least one of them. Shoes, despite being fashionable, play a much more practical role in our lives as well. They protect our feet. When a foot is damaged, you can become pretty immobile. Think of that reality being placed in a real physical battle, your odds of survival are slim.
This being true, spiritually speaking, if we don’t have the right resources to protect our Christian walk when the battle comes, we are in danger of falling. So Paul directs us to shod our feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. It helps us stand firm in the fight while also being balanced going forward.
This means we are to be fully prepared each day with the sure knowledge of the gospel message. Because of Jesus, I have peace with God. Because of Jesus, I can have peace in my soul and walk in this peace and not be shaken. To stand firm and fight the enemy, we must stand on the foundation of the Gospel message. We must stand in the truth of what Jesus has done and advance forward knowing it is He in whom we find our sure footing.
Pastor Jason Witt
A humble and contrite heart is a precious thing to God, but it has become a very rare virtue in our American culture which makes much of self-assertiveness and disconnects self-esteem from the integrity, godly character, and hard work that once produced it. The Bible says that God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5, James 4:6).
A good antidote for the pride that so easily besets us is to authentically and humbly pray this prayer of David. Pray it every day, and then read the Word expecting the Spirit to help you see your own blind spots and unknown weaknesses. The greatest temptation for anyone who has experienced success is to take credit for it and/or to become addicted to men’s praise for it. David was tested by stunning success. The greatest was perhaps the best, which gained him instant renown when he took down the great Philistine giant, Goliath, with a single rock from a slingshot. Songs were sung in his honor.
But success is a hard thing to take, and there are few who can navigate its pitfalls. It was at the peak of his success that David fell. He stopped praying his own prayer, became proud, self-sufficient, and forgot that God was the source of all blessing in his life.
Until the day we die, or the Lord Jesus comes, we will have to contend with our sinful flesh. We need God to answer this prayer, so we need to humble ourselves in the sight of God and pray it earnestly.
Tom Day
These Sadducees were funny. They were trying to get Jesus in a “what if” question. They said what if a guy dies and has seven brothers. When one brother would die, they would, if they wanted to, marry his wife and so on. They all died and asked who does she belong to in the resurrection? They were deceiving themselves into thinking they knew the scriptures but they didn’t know the power of God, nor did they know the scriptures.
We can often deceive ourselves into thinking we know the scriptures. We see it all the time from politicians and movie stars. They say things like “Well, it says in the Bible, don’t judge.” Or they make the case that “Jesus loves everyone.” They speak not knowing the scriptures nor knowing the power of God. May we be encouraged to not be like these Sadducees and work to know the scriptures and the power of God.
Joshua Navarro
Ever been angry with God? Jonah was. God was determined to grant repentance and lavish mercy upon the people of Nineveh. And Jonah, God’s messenger to the people, was not a happy camper. Jonah preferred that God’s judgment reign down on the Ninevites, rather than God’s grace.
We know that God’s ways are always perfect. Yet sometimes, we can find ourselves disagreeing with Him. His ways are not our ways. We would do things differently!
It is likely, if your heart leans in displeasure towards the Lord, He will ask you the same question posed to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry?” God often asks us questions, because they reveal the truth in our hearts. We then recognize the error of our position before Him.
May we always be honest with God, and in turn, may we always be open to receiving His counsel. It is by faith in Him that the eyes of our hearts will see that He is good. Always.
Jeff Deal
Everywhere you turn people are looking for love, yet who else can love us the way God loves us. Many times we are too busy and too distracted to remember that the most important thing of all is love and how we express that love to others.
How does this happen in the church? We need to see one another as God does, glorified in Christ, instead of focusing on the faults and shortcomings of others. We need to focus on who they are in Jesus. That’s what God did for us, God expressed His perfect love to us through Jesus’ death on the cross, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we may express that same love to others.
Jesus prayed to the Father, “I in them, You in ME, that they may be made perfect in one…” all so that the love of God might be seen by all.
Pastor Doug Hardin
Until we go home to the Lord, we are going to battle the flesh. Many times it is going to come down to which one you are feeding more. Are you feeding the flesh or are you feeding the Spirit? When you starve the flesh and don’t allow it to have dominion over you, you are fighting the good fight and you are pleasing the Lord. It is important to note the way we can have victory over the flesh, by living in the power of the Spirit. Stop depending on yourself, you can’t do it on your own. You can only put the flesh to death through the Spirit.
For the King,
Daniel Batistelli
