Coming Back Again

And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them — Luk 2:51

It Was Hard to Return to Nazareth after the Vision of Jerusalem

That visit to Jerusalem was one of the great hours in the life of Jesus. It must have moved Him to the depths. Often in the quiet home at Nazareth His mother had spoken to Him of the Holy City. And the Boy, clinging to her knee, had eagerly listened to all she had to tell. Now He was there, moving through the streets, feasting His eyes upon the Temple. He had reached the city of His dreams. Clearly it was a time of vision. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? In that moving hour there broke on Him the revelation of His unique vocation. And the beautiful thing is that after such an hour He quietly went back to Nazareth, and was subject to Mary and to Joseph. He drew the water from the well again. He did little daily errands for His mother. He weeded the garden, tended the flowers in it, lent a hand to Joseph in the shop. And all this after that great hour which had changed His outlook upon everything and moved Him to the very depths.

Coming from Vision to Duty Was Characteristic of Jesus

That faithful and radiant way of coming back again was very characteristic of the Lord. We see it later at the Transfiguration. That was a splendid and a shining hour, when heaven drew very near to earth. Such hours find a more suitable environment on mountain-tops than on the lower levels of the world. There Moses and Elias talked with Him. There was heard the awful voice of God. There His very garments became lustrous. After such an hour of heavenly converse you and I would have craved to be alone. Voices would have had a jarring sound; company would have been deemed intrusion. And again the beautiful thing about our Lord is that after such a heavenly hour as that He came right down to the epileptic boy. Instead of the voices of Moses and Elias, there was the clamor and confusion of the crowd; instead of the tranquillity of heaven—the horrid contortions of the epileptic. It was the way of Jesus, after His hours of vision, to come right back, whole-heartedly and happily, to the task and travail of the day.

Routine Should Never Be Counted as Drudgery

Now, that is big with meaning for us all, and is capable of endless application. At this season, for instance, one would think of holidays. Many of my readers have had a splendid holiday, favored by weather exquisitely fine. A strong light, says Emerson, makes everything beautiful, and multitudes have found the truth of that. And now, from the "large room" of holidays, and the healing vision of mountain and of moorland, they are back to the old drudgery again. It is never easy coming back like that, especially in the vivid years of youth. The "daily round and common task" are alien and irksome for a little. But if we are trying to follow the great Master, we can show it not only in our going forth, but by the kind of spirit in which we return. He went down and was subject to His parents. He left the hills for the epileptic boy. He did it with that unfaltering faith of His, which assured Him that His God was everywhere. And in that radiant spirit of return from the vision to the daily round, He has left us an example that we should follow His steps.

It Takes Heroism to Come Back to Lowly Tasks

The same truth holds with equal force of all the great revealing hours of life. There is often not a little heroism in coming back again to lowly tasks. When love has once come caroling down the highway it is not easy to get back to drudgery. When sorrow has come and "slit the thin-spun life," how intolerable, often, is that housework! The hand that knocks the nail into the coffin seems to knock the bottom out of everything, and we are left sometimes, paralyzed and powerless, in a world of phantoms we cannot understand. Some men in such hours take to drink. Some who can afford it take to travel. Some lose "the rapture of the forward view" and settle down in the "luxury of woe." But He who came to lead us heavenward, and who drank our bitter chalice to the dregs, has empowered us for a better way than that. To take up our common task again, to march to our duty over the new-filled grave, to come back to the detail of the day, knowing that this, too, is holy ground—that is the path marked out for us by Him who went down and was subject to His parents, and who left the mount for the epileptic boy.

A Christian Does Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways

Nor can we forget how this applies to the great hours of the spiritual life. For that life, too, has its high revealing seasons, when like the apostle we are caught up to Paradise. After such hours (and one of them is conversion) men often yearn to do great things for heaven. They want to be ministers; they want to leave the bench, and go abroad to evangelize the heathen. If that be the authentic call of God it will reveal itself as irresistible, but often the appointed path is otherwise. It is not to go forth in glorious adventure; it is to come back with the glow upon the face—to the old home, the dubious friends, the critical comrades, the familiar faces, it is to tell out there all that the Lord has done, not necessarily by the utterance of the lip, but by the demonstration of the life. A Christian does not always do extraordinary things. He does ordinary things in extraordinary ways. He makes conscience of the humblest task. He does things heartily as to the Lord. And to come back again, with that new spirit, to the dull duty and narrowing routine is the kind of conduct that gives joy in heaven.

Fight The Good Fight of Faith

Paul Defends His Ministry

2Co 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh

2Co 10:4 (for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds),

2Co 10:5 casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ;

2Co 10:1 (1-12) Now, I myself, Paul, beg of you, please, through the meekness and sweet reasonableness of the Christ, who indeed in personal appearance am grovelling, slavish, mean-spirited among you, but being absent, am of good courage toward you, I beg of you, please, that when I am present, I may not be courageous with the confidence with which I am counting on myself to be bold toward certain who take account of us as ordering our behavior in accordance with mere human considerations. For, though we are ordering our behavior in the sphere, of human experience, not in accordance with mere human considerations are we waging warfare, for the weapons of our warfare are not human but mighty in God's sight, resulting in the demolition of fortresses, demolishing reasonings and every haughty mental elevation which lifts itself up against the experiential knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought into the obedience to the Christ, and being in readiness to discipline every careless, apathetic hearing of and disobedience to the Word when your obedience shall be fulfilled. You are in the habit of looking at external appearance. If, as is the case, anyone has fully persuaded himself that he is Christ's, let him be considering this again with himself, that just as he himself belongs to Christ, so also do we. For, even if I should boast somewhat more abundantly concerning our authority which the Lord gave me for your building up and not for your casting down, I shall not be put to shame, in order that I may not seem as if I would make you afraid by my letters, because his letters, indeed, they say, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his discourse of no account. Let such a one take into account this fact that the kind of person we are in our discourse through our letters when we are absent, such are we also in action when we are present. For we are not daring to judge ourselves worthy to be among nor compare ourselves with certain ones of those who are commending themselves. But they themselves, measuring and comparing themselves with themselves, are without understanding.

2Co 10:13 (13-18) But, as for us, we will not boast without a proper standard of measurement but in accordance with the measure of the measuring rule which God apportioned to us as a measuring unit, one that reaches even up to you. For we did not extend ourselves beyond the prescribed limit as though we did not reach as far as to you, for we came as far as to you in announcing the good news about the Christ, not boasting without a proper standard of measurement, namely, not in other men's labors, but having hope that as your faith grows, we may be increased among you in accordance with our measuring rule, resulting in a superabundance, with a view to proclaiming the good news in the regions beyond you, not boasting ourselves in another's field of activity with reference to the things made ready. But he who boasts, let him be boasting in the Lord, for not he who recommends himself, that one is accepted after having been put to the test, but he whom the Lord recommends, that one has His stamp of approval placed upon him, that approval being based upon the fact that the approved one has met the test satisfactorily.

God I’d looking for people who refuse to give up. We are more than a Conqueror through Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour Who strengthens us.

FACED WITH SIN

Faced with Sin

There are some people who take sin lightly—it's kind of a trendy thing today. There are lots of churches and lots of churchgoers who are never really confronted by the wretchedness of their own hearts and the sinfulness of their own sin.

You cannot take sin lightly if you read Isaiah 53, because it was your sin and my sin that put Christ on the cross. How can you treat lightly what he suffered?

If you look at the cross, you understand the sinfulness of sin.

He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised or crushed for our iniquities. The divine chastening, the wrath of God was put on him for our well-being. All we, like sheep, have gone astray, but God has laid on him the iniquity of us all. How can that be a light thing?

Your Sin in Fullness

All your sins—if you put your trust in Christ—were laid on Jesus Christ. In those hours of darkness on the cross, after which he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,” he absorbed all the divine wrath, all the sins of all the people who would ever believe through all of human history.

The Gospel according to God

The Gospel according to God

John MacArthur

Pastor MacArthur walks readers through the prophecy of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 verse by verse, pointing readers to the passage’s fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

You might say, “How could he have possibly have absorbed all the wrath for all the sins of all those people?” It’s because he was an infinite person. He could absorb an infinite amount of divine fury. That’s why everything went black and dark for those hours.

If you look at the cross, you understand the sinfulness of sin. You can’t make light of it when you see it in that fashion.

Strength For All Things!

Php 4:12-13.     I know how to be abased and live humbly in straitened circumstances, and I know also how to enjoy plenty and live in abundance. I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret of facing every situation, whether well-fed or going hungry, having a sufficiency and enough to spare or going without and being in want.

I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me!    [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency].

4:12-13.       Paul knew how to be abased, that is, by not having the bare necessities of life; and he also knew how to abound, that is, by having more given to him at a particular time than his immediate needs required. Everywhere and in all things he had learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. How had the apostle learned such a lesson? Simply in this way: he was confident that he was in the will of God. He knew that wherever he was, or in whatever circumstances he found himself, he was there by divine appointment. If he was hungry, it was because God wanted him to be hungry. If he was full, it was because his Lord had so planned it. Busily and faithfully engaged in the service of his King, he could say, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.”

     Then the apostle adds the words which have been a puzzle to many: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”Could he possibly mean this literally? Did the apostle really believe that there was nothing he could not do? The answer is this: When the Apostle Paul said that he could do all things, he meant all things which were God's will for him to do. He had learned that the Lord's commands are the Lord's enablements. He knew that God would never call on him to accomplish some task without giving the necessary grace. All things probably applies not so much to great feats of daring as to great privations and hungerings.

and more on this topic;

Philippians 4:12.   I know both how to be abased,.... Or "humbled"; to be treated with indignity and contempt, to be trampled upon by man, to suffer hardships and distress, to be in a very mean and low condition, to work with his own hands, and minister to his own and the necessities of others in that way; yea, to be in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, and have no certain dwelling place; and he knew how to behave under all this; not to be depressed and cast down, or to fret, repine, and murmur:

and I know how to abound; or "to excel"; to be in the esteem of men, and to have an affluence of the things of this world, and how to behave in the midst of plenty; so as not to be lifted up, to be proud and haughty, and injurious to fellow creatures; so as not to abuse the good things of life; and so as to use them to the honour of God, the interest of religion, and the good of fellow creatures, and fellow Christians:

every where; whether among Jews or Gentiles, at Jerusalem or at Rome, or at whatsoever place; or as the Arabic version renders it, "every time": always, in every season, whether of adversity or prosperity:

and in all things; in all circumstances of life:

I am instructed; or "initiated", as he was by the Gospel; and, ever since he embraced it, was taught this lesson of contentment, and inured to the exercise of it, and was trained up and instructed how to behave himself in the different changes and vicissitudes he came into:

both to be full, and to be hungry; to know what it was to have plenty and want, to have a full meal and to want one, and be almost starved and famished, and how to conduct under such different circumstances:

both to abound and to suffer need; which the apostle repeats for confirmation sake; and the whole of what he here says is an explanation of the lesson of contentment he had learned; and the knowledge he speaks of was not speculative but experimental, and lay not merely in theory, but in practice; and now lest he should be thought guilty of arrogance, and to ascribe too much to himself, he in Php 4:13 attributes all to the power and grace of Christ.

Philippians 4:13.      I can do all things,.... Which must not be understood in the greatest latitude, and without any limitation; for the apostle was not omnipotent, either in himself, or by the power of Christ; nor could he do all things that Christ could do; but it must be restrained to the subject matter treated of: the sense is, that he could be content in every state, and could know how to behave himself in adversity and prosperity, amidst both poverty and plenty; yea, it may be extended to all the duties incumbent on him both as a Christian and as an apostle, as to exercise a conscience void of offence towards God and men; to take the care of all the churches; to labour more abundantly than others in preaching the Gospel; and to bear all afflictions, reproaches, and persecutions for the sake of it; yea, he could willingly and cheerfully endure the most cruel and torturing death for the sake of Christ: all these things he could do, not in his own strength, for no man was more conscious of his own weakness than he was, or knew more of the impotency of human nature; and therefore always directed others to be strong in the Lord, and in, the power of his might, and in the grace that is in Christ, on which he himself always depended, and by which he did what he did; as he adds here,

through Christ which strengtheneth me. The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions leave out the word "Christ", and only read "him"; and so the Alexandrian copy and others; but intend Christ as those that express it: strength to perform duty and to bear sufferings is in Christ, and which he communicates to his people; he strengthens them with strength in their souls, internally, as the word here used signifies; by virtue of which they can do whatever he enjoins them or calls them to, though without him they can do nothing.

The Christian Life Is Too Hard

“For My Yoke is easy and My burden is light”  Matthew 11:30

Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. Proverbs 13:17

Good understanding wins favour, but the way of the unfaithful is hard. Proverbs 13:15

“I’m afraid of ridicule”

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but who ever trusts in The Lord is kept safe.  Proverbs 29:25

“If anyone is ashamed of Me and My Words in this adulterous and sinful generation, The Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Mark 8:38

“I will lose my friends and companions.”

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.  Proverbs 13:20

The destruction of sinners is unavoidable, for God’s wrath pursues them, and whom God pursues is sure to be overtaken. The happiness of the saints is indefeatable, for God has promised that they shall be abundantly recompensed for all the good they have done and the ill they have suffered.

He can also put his thoughts into your mind.

Today's Reading: Deuteronomy 30; Mark 15:1-25

The Spiritual Battleground is in the Mind!

Today's Thoughts: Crush, Kill and Destroy

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8

Satan is alive and well. His mission has been the same since the Garden of Eden: to crush, kill and destroy (just like the android on Lost in Space). He is good at twisting concepts and manipulating ideas into truths that are not real. Satan’s battlefield is in your mind and starts within your circumstances. He frustrates your plans, trying to crush that peace within your heart. When your attitudes don’t match, you have just become a hypocrite and Satan loves to make hypocrites out of Christians. Once you are aware of this scheme (which for some of us is a lifetime), you learn to pray and resist him by drawing near to God. You do this by learning how to discipline your behavior and choosing not to allow the fruits of the Spirit to be crushed. Praying, submitting to God and meditating on scripture are the next steps. But then Satan’s next plan of attack hits your mind. Now, Satan cannot read your mind but he can discern what you are thinking by your words and behaviors. He can also put his thoughts into your mind. I have found that many times I don’t need the devil to put bad thoughts into my mind because I can do that all by myself. I am capable of taking my own self out of the ministry or walking away from the Lord, with very little effort or attack from him.

So “be on guard” for Satan is seeking someone, like you, to devour. If you look weak, think weak, act weak, and your words express a weakness in your faith, then you will surely become his next target. Peter warns us to be sober and vigilant. Both words have similar Greek meanings: to watch and keep awake. Obviously this is more difficult for us because we don’t see into the spiritual realm to understand what’s going on. If we disregard the work of the enemy, we allow him to have the advantage over us.

After we pray, the Lord opens our eyes and gives us discernment to know what’s really going on. Too many Christians are apathetic and complacent. The enemy doesn’t have to bother with an apathetic and complacent Christian. That is just where he wants us to be, but God has so much more for us. 

The Lord has won the battle; we just have to “put the armour of God on “ and “pray, “ “Lead us not into temptation.” But when we are tempted, remember 1 John 4:4, “Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.” The Lord wants to give us an abundant life on this earth so why not start living it today! 

Are you free from sin through repentance in Jesus Christ and the cares of the world?

Daily Disciples Ministries, Inc. 

Resurrection Victory for Effective Christian Living

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1Co 15:57-58)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ brings spiritual victory over sin and death to all who believe in Him. "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." As we allow the Lord to be our guide through each day, He "leads us in triumph in Christ" (2Co 2:14). When this process is unfolding, an effective Christian life is developing, by the grace of God at work in us.

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast." It is the will of God that our lives be marked by steadfastness (constancy and stability). Paul rejoiced concerning fellow believers who manifested such attributes: "rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ" (Col 2:5). He later added that they were to be "rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith" (Col 2:7).

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be . . . immovable." Our heavenly Father also wants us to be "immovable" (firmly persistent, unable to be swayed). Paul was a good example of this. Although he faced many threatening difficulties, he professed "But none of these things move me" (Act 20:24). When Paul wrote to the saints at Ephesus, he warned of another threat to spiritual persistency: "that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Eph 4:14).

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be . . . always abounding in the work of the Lord." Our Lord wants us to be abundantly laboring with Him. This is one of the purposes of Jesus' redemptive work for us: "Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works" (Tit 2:14). Yes, living by grace will produce abounding good works. The glorious fact is that such labors are actually the Lord at work in and through us: "always abounding in the work of the Lord." As the Lord sustains His work with us, we can grow in a certainty that this kind of laboring will be effective: "knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

Note the key word that indicates the basis for all of these desirable traits: "Therefore." This refers back to the resurrection victory provided by the Lord Jesus. In light of this victorious work of Christ on our behalf, anyone trusting in this reality will find these spiritual virtues developing in their lives, by the grace of God at work.

Dear Lord, I long to walk in spiritual stability. I yearn for a life that cannot be swayed. I want to abundantly labor with You. Therefore, Lord, I place my confidence in the reality of Your resurrection victory. Work in me by Your grace, I pray, Amen.