Obeying the Gospel

THE SINNER’S PRAYER (MARCH 10)

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"And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.' So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls" (Acts 2:40,41).

IN OUR DAY, WHEN PEOPLE ASK “WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?” THEY ARE COMMONLY TOLD TO PRAY THE “SINNER’S PRAYER.” According to its advocates, this prayer is how one “accepts” Christ, based on the premise that “faith only” is the requi...

THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS (MARCH 9)

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"And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that [Jesus Christ] is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (Acts 10:42,43).

THE GOSPEL MAY BE DEFINED AS THE PREACHING OF JESUS CHRIST. And it is in two different senses that it is “of” Jesus Christ. First, it is t...

THE WORST WORDS WE CAN IMAGINE (MARCH 8)

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"And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness'" (Matthew 7:23).

HAVING BEEN MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE, OUR DEEPEST NEED IS FOR FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM. He created us as personal beings, and one of the characteristics of personal beings is their need for relationship with other persons, above all with their Creator. If it is hard for us to be alienated from other human beings, it is even harder to...

THE HIGHEST (AND HARDEST) KIND OF HONESTY (MARCH 7)

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"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).

ALL OF US WANT TO VIEW OURSELVES IN A POSITIVE LIGHT. As a result, we often tell ourselves what we’d like to hear rather than what we need to hear. The human heart is exceedingly “deceitful,” as Jeremiah 17:9 says, and it takes an uncommon measure of honesty for us to see when we are lying to ourselves. Think about three areas where...

SEEING THE SERIOUSNESS OF OUR OWN SINS (MARCH 6)

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". . . but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

INSIDE ALL OF US IS A DEEP NEED TO SEE OURSELVES AS GOOD PEOPLE. We readily admit we’ve made mistakes, but we like to think that’s all they were: just mistakes. If others knew the extenuating circumstances, they would see how hard we’ve had it and how understandable the errors have been. Even in our confes...

TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE SCRIPTURES - 2 (MARCH 5)

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"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3,4).

WHEN WE SPEAK OF THE NEW TESTAMENT RECORD OF JESUS’ LIFE, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION, THERE ARE THREE LINKS IN THE CHAIN OF TRUSTWORTHINESS. First, there were the prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament. Second, Je...

TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE SCRIPTURES - 1 (MARCH 4)

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"Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures . . ." (Romans 1:1,2).

PAUL UNDERSTOOD HIMSELF TO BE A MESSENGER. As an apostle, commissioned by Christ to proclaim the gospel, he saw his work as faithfully transmitting to others that which he had received. He made no attempt to be theologically inventive or original. Quite to the contrary, Paul, with the...

WHY WE STUDY THE SCRIPTURES (MARCH 3)

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". . . from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15).

THERE ARE MANY REASONS WHY WE MIGHT STUDY THE SCRIPTURES, BUT FOR TODAY’S MEDITATION LET’S THINK ABOUT ONE PARTICULAR REASON. The Scriptures are able, Paul says, to make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Whether we ourselves study them or someone else teaches us (as was the case when Timothy’...

ZACCHAEUS: A LOST SOUL NEEDING TO BE SAVED (MARCH 2)

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"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10).

IN THE GOSPEL WE ARE CONFRONTED WITH THE FACT THAT GOD ENTERED THIS WORLD AND TOOK UPON HIMSELF HUMAN FORM IN THE PERSON OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. As the apostle John put it, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). In a...

THE GOSPEL OF GOD’S KINGDOM (MARCH 1)

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"Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel'" (Mark 1:14,15).

THE GREEK WORD TRANSLATED “GOSPEL” IN OUR ENGLISH BIBLES WAS FAMILIAR IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. It meant the joyful proclamation of some great event, often one having to do with Caesar, the Emperor. But in the New Testament, it refers to the greatest of all...

THIS JESUS IS THE CHRIST (FEBRUARY 29)

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"Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, 'This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ'" (Acts 17:1-3).

TO A JEWISH AUDIENCE, THE CENTRAL...

THE RESURRECTION OF THE MESSIAH (FEBRUARY 28)

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"For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption" (Psalm 16:10).

SPEAKING IN THE SYNAGOGUE IN PISIDIAN ANTIOCH, PAUL ALLUDED TO THREE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES THAT POINTED TO THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. To his fellow Jews, he said, “We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are...

PERFECTION, CORRUPTION, RESTORATION (FEBRUARY 27)

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"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God" (Romans 8:18,19).

IF THE GOSPEL IS THE “GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD,” IT’S IMPORTANT TO SEE THAT THE STORY HAS A PLOT OR STORY LINE. In essence, the gospel is about something being repaired that had been ruined. What makes it the greatest of all...

ALIVE TOGETHER WITH CHRIST (FEBRUARY 26)

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"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-6).

WE ALL KNOW ABOUT THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF LIFE AND DEATH, BUT SPIRITUAL LIFE AND DEATH ARE NO LESS REAL. In today’s text, for ex...

ADAM’S HELPLESS RACE (FEBRUARY 25)

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"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6 NASB).

TO SAY THE VERY LEAST, WE DID NOT DESERVE WHAT CHRIST DID FOR US WHEN HE DIED FOR OUR SINS. But not only were we undeserving; we were helpless. His death provided a salvation we could never have achieved by any ability that we possessed. We were, as the Amplified Bible renders it, “powerless to help ourselves.”

Unfortunately, there is a concep...

OUT OF ZION SHALL GO FORTH THE LAW (FEBRUARY 24)

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"And many peoples will come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths.' For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:3 NASB).

IN THIS TEXT FROM ISAIAH, A DAY IS ENVISIONED WHEN GOD’S TEACHING WOULD GO FO...

THEY SHALL ALL KNOW ME (FEBRUARY 23)

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"And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:34).

HERE WE HAVE ONE OF THE MOST OBVIOUS DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW COVENANTS. The difference pertains to “knowing” God; so we need to think for a mome...

WRITTEN ON THEIR HEARTS (FEBRUARY 22)

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"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Jeremiah 31:33).

ALL OF THE PROPHETS EMPHASIZED HOPE. We tend to view them as doomsayers (especially Jeremiah), but the word of God’s judgment upon sin was always accompanied by a message of great ho...

A NEW COVENANT (FEBRUARY 21)

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"Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord" (Jeremiah 31:31,32).

THESE ARE WORDS THAT ARREST OUR ATTENTION. Behold, the days are coming, declares...

THE EXACT IMPRINT OF GOD’S NATURE (FEBRUARY 20)

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"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (Hebrews 1:1-3).

GOD’S REVELATION OF HIMSELF TO MANKIND HAS BEEN PROGRESSIVE. As the writer of Hebr...

ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD (FEBRUARY 19)

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"For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9).

THE CHURCH IN COLOSSAE WAS BEING THREATENED BY A DESTRUCTIVE TEACHING THAT CALLED INTO QUESTION THE SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST FOR THE SALVATION OF MANKIND. Paul, however, emphasized that Christ is absolutely supreme, not needing to be supplemented in any way. In fact, He is the full embodiment of God Himself. It is in Christ that “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”

Listen to Paul as he w...

THE KNOWABLE GOD (FEBRUARY 18)

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"No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known" (John 1:18).

WHILE AN INFINITE GOD COULD NEVER BE KNOWN COMPLETELY BY HIS CREATURES, THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT NOTHING CAN BE KNOWN ABOUT GOD AT ALL. Other than the facts of His existence and power, which can be inferred from the creation (Romans 1:20), we could not know much by our own unaided wisdom (Romans 11:33; 1 Corinthians 1:21). But the truth is, we ha...

LIKE A LAMB (FEBRUARY 17)

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"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth" (Isaiah 53:7).

IT WAS A BASIC PRINCIPLE OF THE LAW OF MOSES THAT THE VICTIM OF A CRIME WAS NOT ALLOWED TO PUNISH THE WRONGDOER — OTHERS WERE TO TAKE CARE OF THAT. We have the same principle in our laws today. And this principle ma...

WITH HIS WOUNDS WE ARE HEALED (FEBRUARY 16)

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"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

AS A JEWISH RABBI, PAUL STUMBLED OVER THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST IN THE SAME WAY THAT MANY HAVE. The Messiah was to be the King, God’s “Anointed.” How could He even be killed, let alone die by crucifixion? To be hanged on a tree was to be under...

DESPISED AND REJECTED BY MEN (FEBRUARY 15)

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"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3).

IF THE WORLD HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO DESIGN ITS OWN MESSIAH OR SAVIOR, IT WOULD HAVE COME UP WITH SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT FROM WHAT GOD ACTUALLY PROVIDED. Jesus was, to say the least, a shock. He was offensive, if not ridiculous, to His enemies. At one...

APPEAL TO GOD FOR A GOOD CONSCIENCE (FEBRUARY 14)

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"Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21).

ACCORDING TO PETER, BAPTISM SAVES US. Its effectiveness does not lie in the washing of dirt from the body, and even as an action that is considered spiritual or religious, being immersed in water would surely not produce the forgiveness of sins if...

BEGINNING WITH THIS SCRIPTURE (FEBRUARY 13)

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"And the eunuch said to Philip, 'About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?' Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, 'See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?'" (Acts 8:34-36).

IN ACTS 8, WE HAVE THE ACCOUNT OF A CHRISTIAN...

TRUSTING GOD’S CHOSEN MEANS (FEBRUARY 12)

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"And the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.' So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live" (Numbers 21:8,9).

THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW WHY GOD CHOSE THIS WAY OF SAVING THOSE WHO HAD BEEN SNAKEBITTEN. As the people of Israel dr...

THE HORRIBLE LIE WE TELL OURSELVES (FEBRUARY 11)

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"The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock, in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord" (Obadiah 3,4).

THE PROBLEM OF PRIDE ADDRESSED IN THE LITTLE BOOK OF OBADIAH IS A UNIVERSAL PROBLEM. Specifically, it...

SOWING AND REAPING (FEBRUARY 10)

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"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life" (Galatians 6:7,8).

ONE OF THE WORST MISTAKES WE CAN MAKE IS TO DISCONNECT OUR ACTIONS IN THE PRESENT FROM OUR DESTINY IN THE FUTURE. The doctrine of God’s grace, for example, is sometimes misunderstood to...

WHAT IF WE COULD SOLVE EVERY PROBLEM BUT ONE? (FEBRUARY 9)

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"And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry."' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'" (Luke 12:18...