Daily Devotions

Tuesday, November 19

Fellowship of the Holy Spirit

“The fellowship of the Holy Spirit” is a blessing for all believers in Christ (2 Cor. 13:14; Phil. 2:1).

We do not need any new baptism of the Holy Spirit to enjoy this blessing. All things are ours in the Christian life when we believed on Christ and received Him. The apostle Paul tells us we are heirs and joint-heirs with Christ. Every believer has received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit from the moment he believed on Christ. The baptism of the Spirit placed us in the body of Christ. We can now enjoy the communion of the Holy Spirit.

The only thing that can now mar this fellowship with the Holy Spirit is unconfessed sin. We abide in communion with the Spirit of God as we abide in the finished work of Christ on the cross. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NASB 1995).

We live in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, which is the fellowship or communion of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is so important that to blaspheme Him is to suffer eternal judgment. Every other sin can be forgiven with the exception of speaking evil of Him (Matt. 12:31-32). To blaspheme the LORD God was punishable by death in the Old Testament (Lev. 24:15, 16). In the New Testament to blaspheme the Spirit results in eternal judgment. To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is to blaspheme against the very essence of the Spirit of God. It is a sin against the constant striving of the Holy Spirit for us to repent and believe on Jesus Christ. It is a defiant attitude until the very end of this life.

The fellowship with the Spirit is so important because we are united to Christ in the bonds of the Holy Spirit. We communicate with Him and He with us. He is our teacher and guide. He leads us. He is our advocate within who interprets the desires of our heart and the will of God. He gives us the power to do the will of God. He convicts us of sin and exhorts us to go to the cleansing fountain.

Our fellowship with the Spirit is of utmost importance because He seeks partnership with us in life and ministry. His resources are unlimited, inexhaustible, and His power is invincible. He longs for our intimate fellowship with us. He longs to be admitted to the inner life of the soul.

However, there are attitudes, reservations, interests, unbelief, prayerlessness, selfish-ambitions, arrogant pride, anger, bitterness, etc. that grieves and quenches His work.

When we are in agreement with Him the personality of the believer is quickened and sanctified. Our desire is to be in constant fellowship with Him.

When we cooperate with Him He comes to give us a daily life that overflows with the fruit of the Spirit. When we are in agreement with Him there is His power operating in and through us. Ministry becomes a daily adventure with Him at the helm. Our empathy for the needy are deepened and enlightened. Our compassion for the lost soul is strengthened and we pray with passion that they will be saved. Ordinary Christians become empowered when clothed with the Spirit of God.

The fellowship, joint-participation, partnership and communion, with the Holy Spirit is communion with the LORD God. It should affect everything we do in our Christian life and ministry.

True spiritual unity comes from within; it is a matter of the heart, and is based on this relationship. That is why Paul in Philippians 2:1 appeals to believers on the strength of this unique relationship with the Spirit. We could translate “if” with “in view of the fact that,” or “since” you enjoy this “fellowship with the Spirit” as a result of the Spirit’s permanent indwelling ministry (1 Cor.  6:19). This may refer, however, to fellowship that comes from the Holy Spirit, just as encouragement comes from Christ and comfort comes from love.

Let us not neglect the sweet fellowship of the Holy Spirit in life and ministry.

Wednesday, November 20

Christ our Redeemer - Part 1

We have been redeemed through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. He paid an infinite price for our salvation. The price of redemption is the death of Jesus Christ. That is the inescapable fact in the Old and New Testament.

The idea of redemption comes from the ancient Greek marketplace. The word agorazo means "to buy," or "to buy in the marketplace." In the New Testament the word places the emphasis on the price Jesus paid to redeem us.

In the Old Testament the Jews used the word gaal, "to redeem." The word goel was the kinsman-redeemer who as the nearest of kin had the power, ability, freedom and willingness to redeem his kinsman from difficulty.

The Jews also used the word kofer meaning "the ransom price," or the price of redemption.

These words suggesting redemption by payment may be strange in our day, but were clearly ingrained in the Jewish and Greek culture of the first century Christianity.

The great Gospel of Jesus Christ not only redeems us by the payment of His death, but it goes a step further. Jesus purchased us out of the slave market and permanently set us free to never return to its bondage. The redeemed person has come under new ownership and management.

The apostle Paul wrote, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us” (Eph. 1:7-8; cf. Titus 2:14; 1 Peter 1:18-19; Matthew 20:28).

The word exagorazo means, "to buy out of the marketplace" with the idea that the person so purchased might never return to such a state of slavery again.

To what extent has God redeemed us? It is an effective and permanent redemption. The promise is we never have to be sold under the power of sin again. Our salvation is so great that Jesus purchased us, and the transaction is complete so that He has taken us out of the marketplace and, we never have to return.

The price our Redeemer paid was so great that no one can possibly top the price He paid! We are not up for sale! No one can purchase us away from the LORD God. We were purchased at the infinite cost of the blood of the Son of God. Nothing is more precious than the infinite value of that blood.

We have been delivered, luo, "to set free, to loose, or deliver" by the payment of a price. Because Jesus Christ purchased us from sin at the infinite price of His own precious blood, He has also set us free so as to never to return to our slavery again. The emphasis is on freedom. We are free to love and serve Him who redeemed us, and now this is why we worship Him.

Have you paused and thanked God for His Son who actually shed His blood to ransom you?

Have you ever considered the exceptionally great price that was paid for your salvation? It is the most expensive gift you will ever receive. It is not cheap just because it is free.

Moreover, your gift of redemption has been paid in full. All that you can possibly do is come with open hands to receive it. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).

The next time you are tempted to throw in the towel and call it quits remind the tempter you are not, and never will be up for sale, ever again.

Why should you ever want to doubt your salvation yet again? It does not depend upon you, but upon the permanent completed transaction by God through the Lord Jesus, your Redeemer.

Thursday, November 21

Christ Our Redeemer - Part 2

The most significant word that describes the death of Christ for sinful man is redemption. It means, “buying again,” or “buying back.” In the Bible it is used especially of purchasing a slave with a view of setting him free. It signifies a release procured by the payment of a ransom price.

The Roman slave could purchase his own freedom if he could come up with enough money. The owner could also sell his slave to someone else who would pay the price and set him free.

The word “ransom” signifies the price paid for a slave who is then set free by the one who bought him.

Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

The apostle Peter wrote, “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19). Hebrews 9:12 tells us it is, “not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” In each of these verses the idea is to “set free by paying a price.”

The redemption price is the blood of Jesus which makes it possible for a righteous God to justify a believing sinner on the basis of satisfied justice.

It is significant in the Bible that we belong to God, but we fell into bondage through willful rebellion; and as a result of sin we must be purchased out of that bondage. Our bondage is the penalty and power of sin. We were alienated from God and in bondage to sin; therefore God in His grace redeemed us from that bondage. We have been “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).

Jesus Christ redeemed us by the sacrifice of Himself at Calvary on our behalf. The death of Christ breaks the power of sin and cancels our debt because He paid it in full. He sets us free by the payment of the ransom price. Christ bought us in the slave market of sin by His own blood (Gal. 3:13; 4:5). We are His own unique possession and we will never be put up for sale in any slave market again.

The Bible does not say to whom the ransom was paid. The important thing to note is the extreme price that was paid to set the sinner free. We were delivered through the death of Christ on the cross (Heb. 9:12).

God demands that this vicarious offering be made, therefore the ransom is obviously paid to God, not Satan.

When Jesus shouted, “It is finished,” He declared that our redemption was paid in full.

God accomplished through the death of Christ precisely what our salvation required.

We deserved to die for sin (Rom. 6:23); Christ died for us (5:6, 8). We were under the just wrath of God by reason of our transgressions, however Christ bore that wrath in our place.

The apostle Paul stresses the truth that we were alienated from God, but Christ reconciled us to God.

Redemption places the emphasis on the truth that we were sold under sin, and Christ Jesus bought our freedom by paying sin’s price in full.

A significant definition of this word is the reality that the believer is set free from sin and is free to live a life pleasing to God in the power of the Holy Spirit. This becomes the highest motivation for Christian living. “For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20).

Our redemption will come to its consummation at the Second Coming of Christ (1 Cor. 15:49). At that moment our redemption will be completed (Luke. 21:28; 2 Thess. 2:8). We enjoy the “newness of life” now, and we will experience the deliverance of the believer from the presence and power of sin, and this body from the bondage to corruption at the Coming of Jesus (Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:14; 4:30).

Abraham’s son Isaac asked, “Where is the Lamb?” (Gen. 22:7) and John the Baptist answered it by pointing to Jesus and declaring, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, 36). Today, in heaven, the redeemed of the Lamb and the angels sing, “Worthy is the Lamb” (Rev. 5:11-14).

Have you placed your trust in Jesus Christ as your redeemer who ransomed you?

Friday, November 22

The Spirit of Free Grace

Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us salvation is by the free grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.” Salvation is by free grace.

The old way of legalism does not like that kind of salvation. The legalists do not like to hear the good news in Jesus Christ. True salvation is by grace of God through faith in Christ. There is no hope of salvation by the law because no sinner can ever live up to the righteous demands of God’s holy law. Salvation is on the basis of free grace, and grace alone, through faith in the person and saving work of Jesus Christ. It is God’s free gift to the sinner.

The apostle goes on to write in the next verse the outcome of salvation by free grace. “For you are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (v. 10).

The emphasis is still on grace. We are “His workmanship.” We are His poem. It is His creative work, not ours. It is so easy to get the wagon in front of the horse. Our good works do not save us. The good works are produced as a result of His work in us. Our works are a result of justification by faith.

In Philippians 2:12, the apostle Paul wrote, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” This clause is not suggesting work for our salvation. The Philippians were already “saints.” The idea is to go on to Christ-likeness in your spiritual growth. “Work out” has the idea to carry it to its ultimate conclusions, work on to completion, finish, or manifest. Work out what God has already worked in when you put your faith in Christ to save you. Carry on to completion what God has begun. Let the Holy Spirit produce His fruit in your daily life.

The legalist believes that grace is “too risky to be true” because people will take it to the extreme and use it as an excuse to sin. But grace does not produce a desire to sin because it does just the opposite. It creates a desire within us to pursue holiness.

The apostle Paul tells them not told to work for their salvation, but to work out the salvation God had already given them. It is a work of grace. Only God could enable them to do it because He is at work within them (v. 13).

C. H Spurgeon said, “The spirit of free grace is this—if God saves me for nothing, then I belong to Him forever and ever. If He forgives me every sin, simply because I believe in Jesus, then I will hate every sin, and flee from it. If He grants me forgiveness on no ground but that of His own absolute mercy and good pleasure, as He has put it, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion;’ then I will love Him with all my heart, and soul, and strength, till time shall be no more. Now, for the love I bear Him, I will lead a holy life. I will serve Him with every power of my being. The virtue I aimed at before, in my own strength, I will now ask for from His Holy Spirit. The goodness that I thought I had but never had, I will seek to have as a gift of His grace wrought in me: and I, because of His great goodness to me, will live to Him, and will not henceforth serve myself or serve sin, but will serve Him who has bought me with his precious blood. Many will not submit to that; yet they can never be saved from sin unless they yield themselves as the blood-bought servants of Christ. Christ comes to save His people from their sins, and from their sins will save them: they shall no longer be in bandage to the powers of evil. The Lord Jesus accomplishes this salvation by freely forgiving them, and then moving their hearts to such a love of Him that they become in love with everything that is pure and holy, and are filled with hatred of everything that is unjust, and wrong and wicked, and their life becomes totally changed. What the principle of law talked about doing, but never did, the principle of grace actually does. It puts a new mainspring into the man . . .” (Sermons Preached by C. H. Spurgeon of London, vol. xvii, pp. 179-80).

Simple faith brings the soul to Christ. Christ keeps the faith alive, and that faith enables the believer to produce good works to the glory of God.

He gave Himself for us and redeemed us to “purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14).

We are not saved by the merits of good works, but by the free grace of God. The fruit of free grace is good deeds of righteousness that will glorify God. We are saved by grace to serve.

Saturday, November 23

The Spirit of Holiness

The God controlled person longs to see only the will of God done in and through him on earth. There can be no true holiness without being obedient to the will of God. It is His will that we be renewed in His own image by the His Spirit and become lovers of His holiness.

The work of the Third Person of the Trinity is to make God's holiness ours. The Spirit of God is pre-eminently “the Holy Spirit.” God is holy. Our Lord Jesus Christ was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26). The Holy Spirit, being the Spirit of Christ, is the Spirit of holiness. Without holiness, no man shall see God (Heb. 12:14).

God is holy; His Son is holy; the Holy Spirit is holy. God's holiness stands apart, by itself, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible, and unobtainable to all of His creatures.  That is God’s standard, and “in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

A. W. Tozer chose his words carefully and accurately when he wrote: “God is holy with an absolute holiness that knows no degrees, and this He cannot impart to His creatures. But there is a relative and contingent holiness which He shares with angels and seraphim in heaven and with redeemed men on earth as their preparation for heaven. This holiness God does impart to His children. He shares it with them by imputation, and by impartation, and because He has made it available to them through the blood of the Lamb, He requires it of them. . . ‘Be ye holy, for I am holy. He did not say, ‘Be ye as holy as I am holy,’ for that would be to demand of us absolute holiness, something that belongs to God alone” (Knowledge of the Holy, p. 113).

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to set us apart to God. He works in us to set us apart from sin and everything that is in opposition to the will of God. But He also works to set us apart to all that pleases God and conforms us to the character of Christ.

The work of making us holy is the work of the Spirit of holiness. God’s goal is that we should become more like Christ every day. He puts in our heart a hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God.

God the Holy Spirit dwells within the temple of the believer’s body (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16). Since He dwells within the believer that person is thereby clothed with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. His indwelling presence empowers the Christian.

Moreover, Christ dwells within men by His Holy Spirit. Christ is not a great example; He is the living Lord. Christian faith does not copy Christ; Christ is reproduced in the heart of a disciple by the Holy Spirit.

All of the Christian's life is made holy because the Holy Spirit transforms it. The Holy Spirit does not work on us; He lives in us. This is the supreme difference between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Works denote sweat and toil; fruit denotes life and growth. Works belong to men; fruit comes from God. Holiness makes our lives fruitful because a holy life abides in the living Word and thereby full and free availability is given to the Spirit of life. The presence of the Holy Spirit makes our hearts clean, our minds pure, our faculties to work at their full capacity, and our lives thereby fruitful to the glory of God.

Sunday, November 24

The Spirit of Life

 The Spirit of life is the life-giving Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the author and giver of life, and the life He gives is free of condemnation. There is now no condemnation for the believer in Christ because of the saving work of Christ which sets His people free from the law that condemns.

The principle on which the Holy Spirit works in the Christian’s life operates in power. He can do what the law could never do.

It is interesting the word Holy Spirit is found more often in chapter eight of Romans than in any other chapter in the New Testament.

The Holy Spirit is the “distinguishing mark” of the believer. His very presence in the Christian means defeat of the power of sin in the believer’s life. The Holy Spirit rules within the heart.

“When the Holy Spirit comes into a person that person is liberated from bondage to evil and finds a new power within, a power that causes the defeat of sin and leads the liberated person into ways of goodness and love,” writes Leon Morris.

By the death of Jesus Christ the believer was freed from the law of sin (Romans 7:23, 25), and death (7:10-11, 13). That does not mean, however, that we are sinless even though we have been liberated from its dominion (6:18, 22). We have a new relationship to the law because of our new relationship with Christ.

Someone said, “Moses law has right but not might; sin’s law has might but not right; the law of the Spirit has both right and might.”

The Christian now has life in the Spirit. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (8:2). The law of the Spirit of life is in Christ Jesus. It is the principle of the new being, and this has freed us from the law of sin and death. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).

This is the new spiritual principle of life. It is through our vital union with Christ that we have received this life-giving Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who has claim on our lives; the law no longer has any claim on the Christian because we have been set free from the law of sin and death. New principles now control the Christian’s life, with new dynamics. We have found deliverance in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The law no longer has any jurisdiction over the Christian. It can no longer lay any claim over you. We have been bought out of the slave market and set free to live this new life in Christ. God sent His Son to be our sin offering and die in our place to turn the wrath of God aside.

The emphasis the apostle Paul is making is there is not even one bit of condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. He freed you once for all from the law of sinful nature and of death.

The law could not save you, and it cannot sanctify you (v. 3). The law was weak through the flesh without the Holy Spirit. Because Christ suffered for you, the law could no longer condemn you. Christ suffered the condemnation of the law on our behalf. Christ came “in the likeness” of sinful flesh and bore our sins in His body on the cross. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, and since we are now “in Christ,” God will not condemn us again. God condemned sin in the sacrifice of Christ so that we can now stand before God in His perfect righteousness.

Because of the life in the Spirit the law can no longer control the Christian (v. 4). The difference between the life of the Christian and the life of the legalist is the believer lives a righteous life, not in the power of the law, but in the power of the Spirit of God. The law does not have the power to produce holiness in us. The only power it has is the ability to condemn.

How then does the Christian live in obedience to God’s will and bring glory to Him? The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit produces the new life in us. He enables us to walk in obedience and fulfill the righteousness of the law in us.

As the believer yields to the control of the Holy Spirit he experiences the sanctifying work of the Spirit in his daily life.

The righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled as we yield the control of our lives to the Spirit. The righteous and just requirements of the law are fully met in us, who live and move and have our being in Christ.

The difference is who is in control of our lives. Our lives are no longer controlled by the standards of the world, but are now under the control of the Holy Spirit.

Monday, November 25

The Spirit of Love

“God is love” (1 John 4:8). His love cannot change because He does not change. His love had no beginning and never will cease. Because God is infinite, His love is infinite. His love is pure and holy. Indeed, His love is incomprehensible.

The apostle Paul wrote words of encouragement to believers saying, “the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5; cf. Gal. 4:6).

The Holy Spirit makes the love of God so abundant in the believer’s heart that it overflows (1 John 4:8, 16). He is the divine Agent who expresses the love of God to the believer.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love” (Gal. 5:22). The apostle Paul gave eight aspects of that love. The fruit of the Spirit cannot be imitated. It comes from our abiding in Christ. As the Spirit of love abides in us He bears His fruit to the glory of God.

It is great assurance for the Christian to know that we are now God’s children and that God loves us. Before we were saved God demonstrated His love by sending Jesus to the cross to die for our sins. Now we have the inner experience of His love through the Holy Spirit that sustains us in our daily life. His sustaining grace gives us patience in our trials and enables us to live to God’s glory.

God’s kind of love is created and fulfilled in us by the Spirit of love.

The apostle John wrote, “Behold, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:10-11).

The evidence that we are the children of God is this divine love dwelling in us. “Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. . . God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:13, 14).

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would live and abide in us forever. The evidence that the promise is true is seen in the fruit the Holy Spirit bears in our lives. The New Testament teaches us that the fruit of His abiding in us is love (Gal. 5:22-23). The apostle John tells us this, too.

When the Holy Spirit fills our hearts we see men and women as Jesus sees them. There is no greater ministry for the believer in Christ to do than to demonstrate and share the love of God in Jesus Christ to those who have never heard or seen it in action. I pray the Spirit of love lead us to the individuals the world over who have never experience the love of God. May the Holy Spirit break our hearts with the things that break the heart of God.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).

How does an invisible God reveal Himself to the world? He reveals Himself in the transformed lives of His children. The lost world looks at us and sees the difference and they ask how this can be. Why are you different? What is it that gives you this quality of life? If we abide in Christ, we will love one another and the world will see the difference. That love is a reflection of God’s love in us. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). “God’s love will be experienced in us and then will be experienced through us.”

Abiding in God’s love is made possible by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (1 John 4:13). What a privilege to have God abide in us. We have God’s Spirit living in us as a permanent resident. Let’s give Him permission to settle down and make Himself completely at home in our hearts. We abide in His love, and we experience the abiding of God in us.

“If you love Me you will keep my commandments,” Jesus said (John 13:34; 15:12). What did He say was the greatest commandment? God’s love is perfected in the believer. God’s love is made perfect in you and me, sinners saved by the grace of God. He reveals His love through us. May our lives be a constant testimony and demonstration of the Spirit of love abiding in us.

“God is love, and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).

Tuesday, November 26

The Spirit of Truth

Whenever Jesus Christ is exalted the Third Person of the Trinity is at work. The Bible emphasizes different activities for each of the three members of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and He always points us in the direction of the way, and the truth, and the life.

Jesus told His disciples, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).

It is through the person and work of Jesus Christ that we know the truth and are set free (John 8:32). Jesus declared, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me” (14:6). A couple of verses later He said to Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (v. 9).

Moreover, the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of truth.” He is the Spirit of Christ who is the truth. He exalts the truth and glorifies Christ.

The Holy Spirit does not speak of Himself, but always of Jesus. Anything that detracts from the person and work of Jesus Christ is not the activity of the Holy Spirit. He will never preempt the place of Christ in our thinking. He will always exalt our Lord. He comes along side us to guide us into the truth about God the Father and the Son.

The “Spirit of truth” opens our blind eyes so the unregenerate heart can see the truth. He un fogs the cloudy mind so that it can understand the truth. He prods the stubborn will so that it responds in full commitment to the truth.

Can a person by searching find out God? The answer is no because he is dead in trespasses and sins, and blind spiritually. God takes the initiative. God has chosen to reveal Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of truth accurately retained and revealed that true revelation from God in the God-breathed Scriptures. The Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, guided over the preservation of His revelation in the Bible. Without such special self-revelation of God to men guided along by the Holy Spirit we would know absolutely nothing about God’s moral attributes.

The Spirit of truth “breathed the breath of God” into His Book and made it the Book of truth (2 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The Holy Spirit of truth reveals the truth about God, man, sin, judgment, atonement, salvation, eternal life, etc. This special revelation is the work of the Spirit of truth. Without this special revelation we are helpless in knowing God.

The Spirit of truth will reveal nothing but the truth about God. He never contradicts revealed truth in His Word, the Bible. After forty years of scholarly study of His Word I have yet to find a contradiction in the Bible. It contradicts human reason and that is the problem. It always proves God to be true and every man a liar.

The supreme ministry of the Holy Spirit is to reveal the Father and the Son. He reveals God in all His glory as the only one living and true God. He reveals in His Word the great mystery of the Godhead, the three in One—the Father, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit who are the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

He is the Agent of the Godhead who reveals what God is like in His saving grace.

The Holy Spirit guides us in the realization that it is in Jesus Christ that God the Father is seen and known (John 1:18). The Holy Spirit glorifies the Son so that we may know the Father. He reveals to us the Father in the Son. The Spirit of truth reveals to every seeker of the truth the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and everyone who believes on Him has eternal life (20:31). He prepares our minds to accept this truth.

“When the Counselor comes . . . He will testify about Me” (15:26). “I have much more to say to you, more than you can bear. But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth” (16:12-13).

The Spirit of truth teaches us about the Lord Jesus in the Scriptures.

The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus Christ by drawing sinners to Him for forgiveness. He causes us to be born again.

The Holy Spirit works in the life of the Christian by reproducing Christ-likeness in us. He intercedes on our behalf within our hearts, as Christ intercedes on our behalf before the Father in heaven (Rom. 8:26, 33-34).

The Spirit of truth leads and guides us into a deeper understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ so that we can be better witness of Him.

Wednesday, November 27

Praise to the All-Knowing God

I am often asked what my favorite passage of Scripture is.  I usually reply that it is whatever I am currently studying.  Romans chapter eight and the Gospels are precious to me. My favorite Psalm is 139 because it applies great Bible teaching to my personal life.

Alexander Maclaren once said, “Not mere omniscience, but a knowledge which knows him altogether, not mere omnipresence, but a presence where he can nowhere escape, not mere creative power, but a power which shaped him, fill and thrill the Psalmist’s soul.”

That is what I love about this Psalm. Three of the most important teachings in the Bible are applied to our daily life, and they give us hope and encouragement in our stressful lives.

Do you long for an intimate love relationship with the LORD God?  Here is a good place to begin. The Psalmist calls us to respond personally to an all-knowing, ever present, and all-powerful sovereign God who loves us intimately.

You might find it frightening, but I am deeply encouraged that the great God of the universe sees and knows everything exhaustively and perfectly.  He definitely did not wind up the universe and walk away from His design.  He is intimately involved in the details of His creation.

“O LORD, Thou has searched me and know me.  Thou hast known when I sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thoughts from afar.  Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down, and art intimately acquainted with all my ways.  Even before there is a word on my tongue, O LORD, Thou dost know it all” (139:1-4).

A. W. Pink explains, “God knows everything; everything possible, everything actual; all events, all creatures of the past, the present, and the future. He is perfectly acquainted with every detail in the life of every being in heaven, in earth and in hell . . . nothing escapes His notice, nothing can be hidden from Him, and nothing is forgotten by Him.  He never errs, never changes, and never overlooks anything.”

The Psalmist responded to such intimate knowledge of us with these words. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high.  I cannot attain to it” (v.6).

I cannot fathom the depth of the mind of God.  How can He know and control all things in the universe?  But the greatest thing is He knows us with such personal detail, and He still loves us! We are not alone in this vast universe.  The LORD God is with us, and wants His best for each of us.

There are no limits of His knowledge of you and me.  We never go unnoticed.  The LORD God is both personal and majestic.  We will never be out of His sight or out of His mind.  We will spend every moment of our lives in the sight and in the company of an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent God.  The All-knowing, always present and all-mighty One loves us, and saves us by His grace and mercy.

He has promised us that His love and grace will never leave us, nor forsake us.  He knows us as personal friends. There is never a moment when His attention is distracted from you and me.

Jeremiah knew God’s holy presence when the cruel Babylonian army was battering down the gates to the city of Jerusalem.   The LORD God said to him, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not the rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD (Jer. 9:23-24).

Thursday, November 28

The Unchanging Christ: The Same Forever

The Unchanging Christ: The Same Forever

“When our Savior comes again,” wrote H. A. Ironside, “God is coming to take control of things in this world and the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh. Father, Son and the Holy Spirit in council in the past eternity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit working out our salvation here on earth; Father, Son and Holy Spirit bringing in the glory by and by when the long period of man’s trial is over, when the kingdom is fully established, and the Lord Jesus Christ abides forever the One in whom the Father and Spirit as well as the Son are fully displayed—for He is the image of the invisible God.”

The writer of Hebrews simply said, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

In His awesome prayer the night before His death by crucifixion, Jesus prayed, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (Jn. 17:5).

“Jesus Christ is the same . . . forever.”

He came from glory and He returned to glory. Here is one of the most profound, relevant truths in God’s Word. Jesus Christ came from glory and took upon our flesh, and humbled Himself to die as our substitute to pay our death penalty. Now He has gone back to the glory He had with the Father in eternity, but He remains a man in that glory.

“This same Jesus.” Oh, praise God. “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

He will come back the way He went—this same Jesus. This same Jesus who was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and with whose stripes we are healed, who cried, “It is finished,” rose form the dead and ascended into heaven—this same Jesus will be unchanged when He returns to this earth in triumphant glory.

He is our unchanged and unchangeable Savior. When He comes again He will not be wearing servants robes, but the robes of the eternal King of glory. He will be dressed in the robes of the King of kings and Lord of lords.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for eternity.” He came the first time to bear our sin and iniquity and die as our substitute. Today He lives ever to make intercession for us as our Mediator. When He comes every knee will bow and confess Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

“This same Jesus” is the “same yesterday, today and forever.” Jesus is eternally the same.

We have received the complete and final revelation of God to man in the person of Jesus Christ which can never be superceded or supplemented by something better.

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (Jn 14:6). The apostle Peter preached, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

In the context of Hebrews chapter 13, the faithful leaders in the church had gone to be with the Lord, but the writer reminds the church members that Jesus remains the same.

Jehovah in the Old Testament is the Jesus of Nazareth in the New. The unchangeable One is the Messiah.

For the first readers of the epistle of Hebrews the Temple had been destroyed, the ceremonial law was gone, and the Levitical priesthood was no more. However, Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the New covenant between God and man abides unchanged forever.

Friday, November 29

The Unchanging Christ: The Same Today

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

The pre-incarnate Christ changes not.

It is said that Plato, the Greek philosopher proposed to his students one day, “It may be that someday there will come forth from God a Word, a Logos, who will reveal all mysteries and make everything plain.”

The Lord God answered Plato when He came in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. The Logos was made flesh and dwelt among men, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:1, 14, 18).

The Lord God has answered the cry in the heart of mankind for God to reveal all mysteries and make plain who He is. No, He has not answered all of our questions about an eternal, all-knowing, sovereign creator. However, He has revealed enough about Himself to answer our deepest needs.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today . . .”

The simple fact of history never changes; Jesus Christ is alive. He is the same person who pre-existed before He became flesh and He is the same one who walked the dusty roads of Galilee, changed the water to wine in Canaan, and raised the dead in Lazarus’ tomb.

There were three witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. We are told that the Father raised Jesus from the dead. Now since He raised Him from the dead He had to be an eyewitness.

The Holy Spirit was there. We are also told in the Scriptures the Holy Spirit quickened Him from the dead.

Jesus was there. It was His experience! “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  On another occasion Jesus said, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father” (John 10:17-18). Other passages of Scripture reinforce this idea. “He is not here, for he has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where he was lying” (Matt. 28:6).

There is perfect unity in the holy Trinity in the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. The Godhead always works in perfect harmony. The Father raised Him from the dead, the Spirit raised Him from the dead, and the Son raised Himself from the dead.

A perfect, unchanging, loving God became flesh and in the person of His Son died on the cross to redeem us. After His resurrection He went back to be with the Father in intimate perfect fellowship.

The same Jesus, the same one who lived, and died, and rose again is the same today in His majestic love and grace for sinners.

The three-in-one still says, “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, we will come in to him, and will sup with him.”

“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever.”

The moment you receive the Holy Spirit you receive the Father and the Son.

“I am the vine, you are the branches.’ “Abide in me and I in you.”

What an eternal blessing to be enjoyed today!

Intimate, holy communion with our eternal Savior. “Make it relevant,” preacher. Can there ever be anything more relevant than this great truth? “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever,” and He invites us to dine with Him for all eternity. He invites and makes possible for you and me to feast upon Him!

Our Christian doctrine does not change from day to day, or as religious leaders pass on because Jesus Christ is the same. The Truth is fixed in Him. His Gospel is everlasting.

Saturday, November 30

The Unchanging Christ: The Same Yesterday

The Unchanging Christ: The Same Yesterday

All of my life I have heard the plea for a relevant “new Christ for a new age.”

The truth is Jesus Christ is God’s final word to men in all ages. He is relevant for every age. He is “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

The same Jesus sits today “on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). He is the same person as He was when here on the earth.

When we read the words, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday” we are carried back to the long ages before He became flesh. I can point to a date, time, and place when I was born. However, Jesus did not begin to live when He was born in the flesh of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem. He simply changed His robes.

The apostle Paul tells us Jesus was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, divested Himself of His garments of glory that had been His from all eternity and clothed Himself in the garments of a common household slave in the flesh and was obedient unto death. He was God-man. He was fully God and fully human (Phil. 2:5-8).

The absolutely essential fact is He was the same in past eternity; He changes not.

I search for an absolute in an age of change; He changes not, and I therefore have security.

He came from the Father and He returned to the Father. He dwelt in the ageless past in the bosom of His eternal Father. The apostle John tells us, “in the beginning was the Word.” When everything else had a beginning He already existed and He had no beginning. His beginning had no beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men” (John 1:1-4).

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday . . .” His eternal existence is declared in these words, “in the beginning was the Word.” He is no vacillating whim of the age. “The Word was with God,” a distinct personality of the true and perfect deity because “the Word was God.” His personal relationship with the Father is unchangeable. He “was in the beginning with God,” and because of His resurrection and ascension, He still is in the presence of the Father in a perfect relationship.

Moreover, His understanding of man never needs to change. No one knows me like the one who made me. “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” “In Him is life.”

Where would you turn for a relevant Christ that is not found in the historic Christ? Would you, like the modern self-made cults, turn to your own making, or to some new age “enlightenment”?

God in Christ has already become one of us in order to demonstrate His love for us, and to show us what God is really like. God came and revealed Himself to sinful and disobedient rebellious men.

I don’t need a greater “light.” I only need to respond to the One true and all supreme Lord of all creation. Why should I turn to some lesser “light”? All other spiritual lights are only creepy shadows of the one who masquerades as “the angel of light,” Satan himself.

We don’t have to look afar to discover what evil lurks within the heart of man. God has fully revealed Himself (Heb. 1:1-3), and man in his stubborn rebellion cries for something greater and better like selfish, pampered, narcissistic children whining for something new.

God has spoken. He has not changed and He will not. He is the same as He was yesterday, and I find stability for my soul and eternal peace with God. Because He is the same I have eternal security of a right relationship with Him, not of my self-making, or choosing, but in His all-sufficient wisdom and grace.

Because He is the same yesterday, I know that what He has said will still remain true for you and me today. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

That great truth will not change, because our Savior changes not. His word and eternal promises remain the same throughout all eternity. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Thank God.