In 1976, just about every self-respecting person in the South went to church on Sunday. It was part of our culture. But I knew the religious pablum the people were being fed didn’t even come close to satisfying their emptiness within-because I knew I wasn’t satisfied.
Looking back, I can plainly see that God was using my need to stir me up and make me aware of the needs of others. But what could one person do in the face of such overwhelming spiritual hunger? When a friend suggested that I do something about the spiritual starvation in our city, I actually laughed. But I started a Bible class that has multiplied ten times during the past thirty-five years so that thousands of men and women have studied God’s Word for themselves.
There are so many needs in our cities but is there one need that God has brought to your attention? Describe to Him what you see and how impossible it would be for you to do anything at all to meet that need. Then be alert to what He may reveal to you further.
To Him who loved us and washed us
from our sins in His own blood.
Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it … Love is as strong as death. § Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
[He] Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness— by whose stripes you were healed. § In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
You were washed … you were sanctified … you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. § You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. § I beseech you … , brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
Rev. 1:5; Song 8:7, 6; John 15:13; 1 Peter 2:24;
Eph. 1:7; 1 Cor. 6:11; 1 Peter 2:9; Rom. 12:1
There are differences of ministries,
but the same Lord.
Azmaveth the son of Adiel was over the king’s treasuries; and Jehonathan … was over the storehouses … Ezri … was over those who did the work of the field for tilling the ground … Shimei … was over the vineyards … All these were the officials over King David’s property.
God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues … One and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever.
1 Cor. 12:5; 1 Chron. 27:25–27, 31;
1 Cor. 12:28, 11; 1 Peter 4:10–11
Following the resurrection of Jesus Christ but before His ascension, He spent forty days and nights, coming and going among His disciples. At one point, two of His disciples were walking along the road to Emmaus when suddenly Jesus appeared, walking with them. Then, just as suddenly, when they broke bread together, He disappeared. At another time that same day, His disciples were gathered together in the Upper Room in Jerusalem with the windows barred and the doors locked. Suddenly Jesus was in their midst; then just as suddenly He disappeared. Jesus appeared again suddenly to His disciples on the shore of Galilee after they had been out all night fishing.
During the forty days when Jesus suddenly appeared to His disciples then just as suddenly disappeared, could it be He was teaching His disciples to live by faith? Whether or not they could see Him, He seemed to be teaching them to be confident He was actively present and involved in their lives.
Even though you cannot see Him, you can know He is near because He says He is!
The goat shall bear on itself all their
iniquities to an uninhabited land;
and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. § “In those days and in that time,” says the Lord, “the iniquity of Israel shall be sought, but there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found; for I will pardon those whom I preserve.” § You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. § Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity?
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. § He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. § The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Lev. 16:22; Ps. 103:12; Jer. 50:20;
Mic. 7:19, 7:18; Isa. 53:6; 53:11–12; John 1:29
Who makes you differ from another?
And what do you have that you did not receive?
By the grace of God I am what I am. § Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth. § It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. § Where is boasting then? It is excluded. § Christ Jesus … became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption … “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”
You He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. § You were washed … you were sanctified … you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Cor. 4:7; 15:10; James 1:18; Rom. 9:16; 3:27;
1 Cor. 1:30–31; Eph. 2:1–3; 1 Cor. 6:11
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Westminster Abbey in London. It is a grand cathedral where many of the kings and dignitaries of England are buried, and where the kings and queens receive their coronation. The narthex is small, dark, and cramped-just a brief space to pass through between the outside door and the door leading into the cathedral itself. I can’t imagine anyone visiting the abbey and being satisfied to stay in the narthex. I also can’t imagine anyone who would make an enormous effort to stay there with no thought to passing through to the glory of what lies beyond.
Your life and mine here on earth is like the narthex to a grand cathedral. Our lives are simply an area to pass through on our way to the glory of eternal life that lies beyond the door of death. Physical death for a believer is simply a transition into real life. And it’s God’s purpose that you and I live forever-with Him.
