Our Adversary: by ML Jones

He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8

We begin by considering this “adversary,” as he is described (1 Peter 5:8), the devil. The Son of God came because there was a certain state and condition in this world that had been produced by the devil. Now whether we like it or not, the fact is that the whole drama of redemption, as it is outlined in the Bible, simply cannot be understood at all unless you accept the biblical doctrine with regard to the devil. It is an essential part of this message; it is there from the very beginning and right through to the end.

And this is the biblical teaching. The explanation of the problem of mankind and the whole state of our world is to be traced back to this fact about the devil. According to the Bible, God made the world perfect; so what has gone wrong with it? And here is the answer. Someone who is described in various terms and to whom various names are given in the Bible came and spoke to the man and the woman whom God had placed in that perfect world. He is called “Lucifer,” “the son of the morning,” and “the god of this world.” He is called “the serpent,” “the prince of the power of the air,” and “the strong man armed.”

There are various names given in the Scriptures, but they all describe the same person. And according to this teaching, this is the explanation of evil and of sin and of all our miseries in this world. The devil came and spoke to man, and he enticed him to sin. So man went against God; and the result of all this is the state of the world as it has been from the moment that man fell.

With No Uncertainty: by Jerry Bridges

Be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. 2 Peter 1:10

Life is filled with uncertainties, some major, some minor. But whether the issue is significant or trivial—waiting for the results of a cancer biopsy or wondering if you’ll make your connecting flight—no one likes uncertainty.

“How may we attain a right relationship with God?” is the most important question we can ever ask. That being true, it follows that uncertainty over whether that relationship is real has to be the greatest uncertainty of all. If a cancer biopsy rates an eight or nine on our stress scale, this question has to be off the chart.

God, however, doesn’t want us to be uncertain about it. As the apostle John said, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). God wants us to know we have eternal life. To some people the claim to know such a thing sounds presumptuous and arrogant. But if God wants us to know it, we’re only laying hold of what pleases Him when we affirm our assurance of eternal life.

How then can I know that I have eternal life—that I’ve indeed come into a right relationship with God? The Scriptures show us three means by which God assures us that we do have eternal life:

(1) the promises of His Word,

(2) the witness of the Spirit in our hearts, and

(3) the transforming work of the Spirit in our lives.

The unsearchable riches of Christ are a treasure trove of blessings given to us. Part of that treasure is the assurance God gives that we do have eternal life. Don’t stop short of availing yourself of His riches until you have that assurance.

What’s Up with Anxiety? from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

Luke 12:22-26 And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?

Anxiety is a result of envisioning the future without Me. So the best defense against worry is staying in communication with Me. When you turn your thoughts toward Me, you can think much more positively. Remember to listen, as well as to speak, making your thoughts a dialogue with Me.
     If you must consider upcoming events, follow these rules: 1) Do not linger in the future, because anxieties sprout up like mushrooms when you wander there. 2) Remember the promise of My continual Presence; include Me in any imagery that comes to mind. This mental discipline does not come easily, because you are accustomed to being god of your fantasies. However, the reality of My Presence with you, now and forevermore, outshines any fantasy you could ever imagine.

Ephesians 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Learning: by TA Sparks

We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. 2 Corinthians 1:8,9

It is a part of the nature of things that we never learn in a vital way by information. We really only come into the good of things by being "pressed out of measure." So the Lord has to take much time to make spiritual history. When at length our eyes are open, we cry, "Oh, why did I not see it before!" But everything else had to prove insufficient before we could really be shown, and that takes time. Thus it was that we were turned in that dark hour to Romans chapter six, and, almost as though He spoke in audible language, the Lord said: "When I died, you died. When I went to the Cross I not only took your sins, but I took you. When I took you, I not only took you as the sinner that you might regard yourself to be, but I took you as being all that you are by nature; your good (?) as your bad; your abilities as well as your disabilities; yes, every resource of yours. I took you as a 'worker,' a 'preacher,' an organizer! My Cross means that not even for Me can you be or do anything out from yourself, but if there is to be anything at all it must be out from Me, and that means a life of absolute dependence and faith."

At this point, therefore, we awoke to the fundamental principle of our Lord's own life while here, and it became the law of everything for us from that time. That principle was: "nothing of (out from) Himself", but "all things of (out from) God." "The Son can do nothing of (out from) Himself, but what He sees the Father doing: for what things so ever He does, then the Son also does in like manner" (John 5:19). Such a revelation, if it is to be a staggering and breaking thing, so that there is no strength left in us, requires a background of much vain effort. But then, it carries with it a great implication. While an end is written large in the Cross, and while that end is to be accepted as our end indeed, so that there can be no more of anything so far as we are concerned, Jesus lives! And that means boundless possibilities.

Prayer's Wholehearted Determination: by Andrew Murray

Daniel... prayed three times a day, just as he had always done. Daniel 6:10

As we seek to have unbroken fellowship with God in Christ throughout the day, we will realize that only a definite meeting time with Christ will secure His presence for the day. The essential thing to having a daily quiet time is wholehearted determination, whatever effort or self-denial it may cost. In academic study or athletics, every student needs determined purpose to succeed. Christianity requires, and indeed deserves, not less but more intense devotion. If anything surely the love of Christ needs the whole heart.

When we make this decision to secure Christ's presence, we will overcome every temptation to be superficial in the keeping of our pledges. Our determination will make the morning watch itself a mighty force in strengthening our character and giving us boldness to resist self-indulgence. It will enable us to enter the inner chamber and shut the door for our communion with Christ. From the morning watch on, this firm resolution will become the keynote of our daily life.

Often we hear the statement that great things are possible to those who know what they want and will it with all their heart. If we have made personal devotion to Christ our goal, we will find the morning hour the place where daily insight into our holy calling is renewed. During this quiet time, we are fortified to walk worthy of His calling. Faith is rewarded by the presence of Christ who is waiting to meet us and take charge of.us for the day. We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us, Christ waits to meet us.

After God’s Silence, What? by Oswald Chambers

When he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. — John 11:6

Has God trusted you with a silence, one that is full of meaning? God’s silences are his answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany, as Lazarus lay sick and dying, tended by Mary and Martha (John 11). Is there anything similar to those days in your life? Can God trust you as he trusted Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, or are you still asking for a visible answer? If you refuse to go on without certain blessings, God will give them to you. But his silence is the sign that he is bringing you into a marvelous understanding of himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? You will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible—with a silence that is not of despair but of pleasure, because he saw that you could handle a bigger revelation.

If God has given you a silence, praise him. He is bringing you into the great flow of his purpose. Precisely when the answer will manifest itself is a matter of God’s sovereign choice. Time is nothing to God. Perhaps you’ve grown impatient and you think, “I asked God to give me bread, and he gave me a stone.” He did not. Soon you will find he gave you the bread of life.

A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that the contagion of his stillness gets into you and you become perfectly confident: “I know God has heard me.” His silence is the proof that he has. As long as you have the idea that God will bless you in answer to a prayer, he will do it. But he will never give you the grace of silence. When Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer isn’t for blessings but for the glorifying of the Father, he will give you the first sign of his intimacy—silence.

Faith in Training: by CS Lewis

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11: 6

Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where they get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion. Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.

The first step is to recognise the fact that your moods change. The next is to make sure that, if you have once accepted Christianity, then some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious readings and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?