Black Friday Yesterday was the Thanksgiving holiday. A day marked in our culture with feasting and fellowship. Usually, the abundance of food leaves us with additional portions of various dishes stored away in tupperware, or, if you are genuinely cultured in country ways, you use old butter and cool whip bowls. But this day is also known for its abundance in another kind of overflow. This is the day known as Black Friday. To the best of my knowledge, this term comes from the fact that many retail businesses move into the profitable category for the year based on the sales that take place on this day each year or at least the sales over this extended weekend. An active shopping weekend as folks get a jump on their Christmas shopping, ends up being a bountiful reason for Thanksgiving for the stores and retailers. Blessings Abound But dollars and cents are not really what we should be most thankful for as we enter the holiday season. Many of us probably overlook the lavish blessing that our affluent abundance affords us. Take for example the leftover sample of the holiday feast mentioned above. Those are not just some tasty morsels tempting us to indulge, but rather they are reminders of the overflowing supply that God has graciously given us. Besides, we all know that the best part of the Thanksgiving food is the turkey sandwich the next day. The real blessing of the feast is the fellowship shared with those that we love, both blood related and blood bought! Our leftovers (memories) are meant to be for us a lingering blessing of love and grace from God. They also serve to call us back to the table for faithful and fruitful fellowship. Sometimes we get tempted to neglect the old traditions for shiny new trends or we become overwhelmed by busyness, cutting the margin out from our blessings. In any case, we ought to recognize the sweetness of the simple but substantial bounty from the Lord. Baskets Jesus wasn’t afraid to have a few leftovers around either. Remember when Jesus fed the multitudes on those couple of occasions. Have you ever wondered why the portions were not exact? I mean, Jesus had the ability to feed thousands of hungry bellies from the measly rations of five loaves and two fish on one occasion (John 6:3-13) and seven loaves and a few fish in the other situation (Matthew 15:32-39). With this kind of sovereign omnipotence surely He could have made the perfect amount to meet the need. But that’s exactly the point, His calculations were perfect! The Lord Jesus did not make more than He intended, but exactly what He intended to show His abundant grace. He poured out more than the people needed. There are so many important points that could be drawn from what the Lord was doing, but I would like to deal with just one in the remainder of this post. In the passage in John 6, Jesus is showing that He is greater than Moses and greater than the gift of manna from heaven. He is the true bread that comes down from heaven that fully and completely satisfies. Remember in the wilderness the children of Israel were not allowed to collect any extra. This meant that they had to trust God to provide each day. But now in Jesus’ provision, we also continue in faith but that is seen in the abundance of baskets that the disciples gathered after the feast. Let me encourage you to enjoy both the assurance and the rest that you have as a believer in Christ. Jesus is more than enough! Happy Thanksgiving & Merry Christmas, Saints!
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Pals With Thanksgiving coming up next week this is a time when we tend to think about what we are most grateful for in our lives. It doesn’t usually take too long to realize that the most important elements of our lives are the people and not the things. Pleasures, possessions, and properties are empty without the connection and value found in genuine companionship. The holidays are traditionally a time when many people gather with and focus on family. This is certainly appropriate. However, our physical relatives are not the only relationships with which we are blessed. God has given us connections with other image bearers in deep and abiding friendships. These people, while not our close flesh and blood, are still knit close to hearts by God’s grace. It may have been because we happened to grow up in the same town, go to the same school, work at the same job, play on the same team, share the same hobby, or serve the same military but God uses these kinds of experience to mold us and shape our relationships. Count your many Blessings As we prepare for the joyous festivities of the Thanksgiving holiday, we must remember to express our great appreciation to God for every good and perfect gift that we have received (James 1:17). While we should praise God for everything including the provisions, possessions, and positions with which He has graced our lives, we also must put the preeminence and priority on the people that God has kindly placed in our circle of influence and friendship. May we let this accounting begin with those in our own household. Let us praise God for our families, those who are our own flesh and blood. In both our immediate and extended families let us praise God for these people who God has sovereign placed us with and plead for their true blessing. But let us also give great glory to God for our faithful friends who have stood by us in both good and bad times. Whether they be childhood companions, college buddies, or new pals; these people are a blessing. I especially want to point out that while friendships mediated by distance and technology are still wonderful, we all need real flesh and blood companionship and fellowship. Let us praise God for these people with which we can laugh, weep, and reminisce about kindness to us. However, we must also remember to be thankful for those people with whom God has brought us into the covenant relationship of the local church. I know we live in an age where we celebrate our autonomy. But we must realize that behind every creaturely decision that we have made God has been guiding and directing us to bring us to the place where we are. Since this is the case, it is not an accident that those people down the row or pew from you are there. God has brought you both into this covenant relationship. We ought to be thankful for the blessing of a faithful church. With these covenant relationships come many wonderful responsibilities and privileges, in these things we ought to recognize God’s blessing flowing to us through these other Spirit filled Saints. What a Friend But the friend we ought to be most thankful for is the Lord Jesus Christ! As the old song goes, “what a friend we have in Jesus”. Remember when Jesus was hours away from His wrongful arrest, trumped up trial, and horrific execution, He reminded the eleven disciples that He had chosen them to be more than mere servants but actual close and valued friends (John 15:12-17). Jesus is the best friend anyone could ever or will ever have. He is truly the friend that is closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). Ultimately, it is through our faith in the friendship and Lordship of Jesus that brings us into a relationship of peace with God (Romans 5:1). Remember that Abraham believed God and based on the relationship of righteousness based on faith, Abraham was also called the friend of God (James 2:23). The reality is that no one is in a place of neutrality when it comes to God. Everyone is either a friend of God through repentant faith placed in the one and only Lord Jesus Christ, or an enemy of God, in rebellion against His justice and fallen in sin and iniquity. So what about you? Are you a friend or an enemy? Let me give some friendly advice. Turn to Christ in faith and draw near to God the greatest friend you will ever know! Conflicts This post is going to end up being somewhat dated in that I am dealing with the state of current affairs in our world. The world news that I am referring to is the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. However, in this post I am not so much concerned about the eschatological importance or lack thereof of these events, but rather the practical parable that this real war gives us with our ongoing struggle against sin. Problems and conflicts have plagued the Middle East not simply since the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 but since the days of Abraham in Genesis. This land has almost always been embroiled in battles, occupations, and conquests. These problems only got worse when the dangerous ideology of militant Islam entered the equation. To this day, faithful Muslims must strive to see the world, but especially the “Holy Land,” brought into submission to the law of Islam. Truce Many people are calling on Israel and the terrorists of Hamas to agree to a temporary combat pause. Sometimes these efforts are called a “cease fire” or groups can even enter into formal peace treaties. The problem with this from a practical perspective is that Hamas will never stop desiring to destroy the Israeli state. Remember, they must bring everyone into submission to Islam. This submission need not be willing or devout. This means that force and coercion is fine in the Islamic worldview. To state it bluntly, Hamas wants to destroy Israel and kill every single Israeli person. This is such a good analogy of the war that we are involved in with our pesky and prevalent sin. Sin is our enemy and our enemy will not cease or stop until we are destroyed and defeated. Much like Hamas, our sin wants to completely defeat us. If Israel stops fighting against Hamas at that moment Hamas will begin to destroy Israel because they will not permanently stop trying to eradicate Israel from the land. Israel has no choice but to win this war by destroying Hamas for their own survival. In the same way we must put our sin to death everyday for our own survival. Too many Christians are trying to negotiate a ceasefire with our sin. But the peace that we need cannot be found in diplomacy or negotiation but on at the cross. The peace that we are seeking as believers is not peace with our sin or with the pleasures of this world or with Satan who hates God and all those who bear His image. Rather the peace that we need is with God Himself (Romans 5:1) and that peace is only available when our sin receives that death penalty (Colossians 2:13-14) and we are then free citizens of Christ’s Kingdom and members of God’s household. Daily Battle Jesus instructed His disciples that following Him would mean a daily discipline of denying themselves the carnal and worldly pleasures of sin to instead bear their own cross (Luke 9:22-23). But what is the purpose of daily bearing this cross? The point is that the cross is where we put our sin to death daily. In our battle with sin we must be continually putting it to death. Our indwelling sin is a doomed opponent, but the settled state of its final fate does not stop its continued attack. So sin and Satan continue to oppose us. We must resolve, based upon the victory of Christ and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to turn from sin and trust in Jesus. Providence The Almighty God revealed in the Bible is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. He is over all things and His will cannot be stopped or thwarted. Nothing can stop or hinder God from accomplishing all His will. It is also true that God cannot lie. He is the truth! Since truth is essential to His character, we can say that God does not lie, will not lie, and cannot lie. This is not a contradiction because the reason that God cannot lie is not because of a lack of ability, but rather because of God's perfection. God is perfectly truthful. Since both of these things are true, we can conclude that God always keeps His promises. He never binds Himself to an oath or a covenant in which He does not entirely fulfill His responsibility. However, oftentimes we overlook the gracious fulfillment of both prophecy and promises. In doing so, we end up holding onto future hopes of fulfillment about things that should instead fill us with confidence concerning the promises that God has made. Sworn When God says something, that thing will happen. When He gives us a promise we can be sure that it will come true. For example, God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He would surely give them the land of Canaan. The piece of real estate is even called the promised land. Many believers look at the embattled history of the people of Israel and conclude that those promises have not been fulfilled. However, since these folks genuinely trust the Lord, they are sure that this must be a future prophecy for Israel in the end times. But what if the Scripture clearly and emphatically told us that God had kept those promises? What if the Bible said that God had given the land to Israel just as He had promised? What if the Bible said that Israel had taken possession of the land and settled there? What if the Bible said that God had given Israel rest from all their enemies? What if the Bible said that not one word of all the good promises of God had failed to come to pass? Joshua 21:43-45 Thus the LORD gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the LORD gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the LORD had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass. Now read that passage again! Notice that God has kept every promise that He has made for His people. Not one of them was unfulfilled. Shouldn’t we believe God not only when He makes a promise, but also when He tells us that He kept it! Warnings We also should believe God when He gives warnings about the judgment and destruction that will come on those who continue in unbelief and disobedience. In Luke 21, the Lord Jesus Christ clearly tells about the destruction that will happen to that temple, that city and that generation. Again people often conclude that this hasn’t happened yet even though that temple, that city, and those people of that generation were judged and destroyed in 70 A.D. God doesn’t make threats, He makes promises. Promises to bless and promises to destroy. And He keeps those promises, EVERY TIME! Salvation But let us not forget that God also promises to save His people. And He always keeps this promise also. Consider the promise of Christ in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” In this text, Jesus is making a promise to save all those who come to Him. He goes on to explain in verse 38-39 that He will not lose any of those who have been given to Him and that He will raise them up on the last day! Jesus gave us His sure word and promise. Will you trust Him to save you? To give you everlasting life? To keep you and not lose you? To ultimately raise you up on the last day? |
AuthorEddie Ragsdale Archives
May 2024
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