I vividly remember my first backpacking trip. It was incredible. The snow was fresh, the sky was blue, and the air was crisp. My friends and I had snowball fights, ran around the mountain slopes, and hung out around a warm and soothing campfire. It was a beautiful Kodak moment.

I also vividly remember the hike back down the mountain. I was practically running the whole time. Why? Because I was starving, and we were going to Chipotle.

If you’ve ever been to Chipotle, you know what I’m about. Their burritos are fat, juicy, savory, zesty, and scrumptious.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of sinking your teeth into a Chipotle burrito, I want you to close your eyes and picture your perfect burrito (please do not picture an item from the Taco Bell menu). Now take your perfect burrito, and multiply its amazingness by a factor of one bajillion. Now you have a glimpse of the epicness of a Chipotle burrito.

I was booking it down the mountain for one of these burritos. And let me tell you, when I got mine, I demolished it. It was gone in a matter of minutes. And I was stuffed.

But what happened after I digested that half-pound Chipotle burrito that will one day clog my arteries? I got hungry again.

I found satisfaction in that gorgeous burrito, but it didn’t last.

It is the exact same scenario with the pleasures of the world, with the pleasures of sin.

In the moment of temptation, sin seems like the most satisfying thing in the world. It seems like satisfaction can be found in nothing else.

Now it would indeed be foolish and ignorant of us to say that the world and sin offers no satisfaction, because it does.

But does this satisfaction last? Or is it a fading and a fleeting pleasure, just like the “satisfaction” from a Chipotle burrito?

Everything around us (and our sinful flesh within us) is telling us that the world and sin do offer true satisfaction, even eternal and lasting satisfaction.

Sadly, we buy into this lie all of the time.

How can we learn to expose and fight this lie, and choose real satisfaction, satisfaction that truly lasts?

We would do well to look to and learn from one of the godliest men who has ever lived; one whose example teaches us to resist and flee the temporal, passing pleasures of the world and sin.

The Bible describes to us what this God-fearing man did in the face of temptation in Hebrews 11:24-26:

“By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.”

Moses had a choice to make. He could have chosen to:

a) take the position in the Egyptian royal family, and thus have access to all of Egypt’s treasures

OR

b) follow the command and will of God to lead Israel, His people, but also be mistreated with them

Hebrews 11:24-26 tells us that Moses chose option B; he chose to suffer with the people of God.

Mind you, Moses gave up a lot by choosing this path. He gave up his status as royalty. He refused the treasures that Egypt had to offer – wealth, fame, power, just to name a few.

Why in the world would he do this? He knew how much power he would have had as a member of the royal family. He knew how much wealth he could have garnered and how many luxuries could have been at his beck and call.

But Moses also knew that these pleasures were fleeting. They weren’t going to last. The Egyptian empire wasn’t going to stand forever. He could enjoy the wealth of Egypt, but only for the duration of his short lifetime. Thus Moses chose to suffer with the people of God, because of the reproach of Christ would mean greater wealth. He chose to be mistreated with Israel because he was looking forward to a “reward”.

What reward could be greater than the riches that Egypt had to offer? What could be better than fame and wealth and power in a dominant empire?

Hebrews 11:6 tells us plainly that this greater reward is knowing God Himself.

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (emphasis mine)

This verse not only tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith, but also that if anyone wants to draw near to Him, they must believe that He exists and rewards those who seek Him.

While this verse could be speaking of earthly or even spiritual rewards, it would be best to search the rest of Scripture for the answer.

Elsewhere in the Bible we read that God Himself is our exceeding joy, our ultimate joy; He is the ultimate good, and there is nothing better than being near to Him (Psalm 43:4; 73:28). There is no greater reward, there is no greater joy, than knowing God!

Moses knew that the pleasures of Egypt were temporal, but more importantly, he knew that the reward of God was eternal and everlasting. He knew that the world and its desires would eventually pass away (1 John 2:17), but that God would never leave him and never forsake him (Hebrews 13:5). He knew that true satisfaction came not in wealth and possessions and power, but in God and His mercy (Psalm 90:14).

So how can you and I learn from the example of Moses? How can we take this amazing portrait of faith and holiness and apply it to our lives?

We need to recognize that we face a choice like Moses’ everyday. Sure, we may not be asked to be a part of a royal family, be we are asked to choose the world over God. We must choose between placing our satisfaction in the earth’s fleeting pleasures or in the God of the universe.

Each day we go to school, we are confronted with the temptations of the world. Each day we live our lives, we are pressured into placing our satisfaction in the things of this world. It could be school, relationships, the future, or even money. And these temptations and pressures aren’t going to stop.

Instead of making these temporal pleasures our ultimate source of satisfaction, let us be like Moses and find God more satisfying, because He is! Let us look to the reward of knowing God. Let us seek God and consider the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the passing wealth of this world.

It is my prayer that you and I would follow Moses as he finds his satisfaction in God. May we not look to the creation for our satisfaction, but instead look to its Creator.

This past weekend was stressful, hectic, and exhausting.

I worked from 8am to 11pm Saturday and Sunday (with a few nice breaks) setting up for Compass Bible Church’s Fall Fest.

You think that’s a brutal shift?

I had it easy.

Some of my friends on the Facilities Team worked  from 7pm Saturday to 9am Monday morning. They stayed overnight at the Fall Fest site two nights in a row. Talk about being exhausted!

And mind you, this wasn’t “sitting behind a counter taking orders” work; this was full on manual labor. We lifted platforms, moved coolers, set up tents, and constructed cement-filled buckets (which were actually fun to make). We had cuts, bruises, swollen ankles, and headaches.

Two words would sum up how we felt after working our shifts: “Nap Time”.

We wanted to lie down, put our heads on top of pillows, and crash. We yearned for our rest.

But as nice as a cold pillow and a comfy bed would be after a long weekend of work, there is a much more satisfying rest that the Bible outlines for us in the book of Hebrews.

Hebrews 4:9-10 tells us that

“…there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.”

If we are the people of God, bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, there remains for us a Sabbath rest. This rest is much more than a physical rest, it is an eternal, spiritual rest; it is, as verse 10 tells us, the rest of God.

Just as God rested from His work of creation on the seventh day, so we too will rest from our work here on this earth when we go to be with Him.

Our bones will ache no more, our headaches will be permanently done away with, our droopy eyes will never shut themselves in sleep.

Let me ask you, do you get more excited about going to sleep after a long day at school than you do about meeting your Lord and Savior and resting with your Creator forever and ever?

Do you wake up looking forward to the time when you can kick back at the end of the day and watch television, rather than looking forward to when you will see Jesus Christ face to face?

If you’re anything like me, the unfortunate answer to both of those questions is sometimes “Yes”.

Why is it this way? I think a huge reason (at least for me) why we aren’t always looking forward to our everlasting rest is because we are truly ignorant of how awesome our heavenly rest will be.

The book of Hebrews is very clear that our rest with God, our eternal stay in heaven, will be much better than any rest that we will have here on earth.

Hebrews 4:10 tells us that we will rest from our works, that is, we will never have to toil and work like we have in this life again. This rest isn’t a temporary, eight-hour break from 10pm to 6am. It is an eternal and perfect rest. The pains of homework, tests, and studying will be gone. The long, eight-hour shifts at work will vanish.

Our eternal rest isn’t in our houses either, nor is it in a five-star, beachfront hotel. It’s in a far better place, as Hebrews 12:22-24 tells us.

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

When we reach our rest we will come to:

- the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (also called New Jerusalem)

- innumerable angels in festal gathering (a gathering infinitely better than the one at Fall Fest, as incredible as it was)

- the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven (all Christians from all of time)

- a judge who is God of all

- the spirits of the righteous made perfect (most likely the saints who died before Christ came, see Hebrews 11)

- last but not least, the Lord Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, who shed His blood for the sins of mankind

This picture that the author of Hebrews gives should get us absolutely stoked for heaven! This heavenly rest absolutely blows any type of rest here on earth completely out of the water.

Rather than getting excited for sleep, we as the people of God need to get excited about our heavenly rest. We need to live each day hoping and praying for the time when we will return to the Lord.

May you and I seek the things not of this world, but rather the things of the kingdom of God. May we not be satisfied in the fleeting pleasures of this life, but instead glory and boast and find joy in the God whose rest we will enter when we go to meet Him.

You may not know this, but I used to play tennis for my high school. Used to. I wasn’t any good. I was what you would call a bench warmer.

I could hit the ball hard, but getting it into the white lines was always a bit of a struggle for me. Turns out that in tennis, that is a big problem.

Did I care? Not really. After all, all I wanted was P.E. credits. And since tennis was easy (because I was bad), I figured, “Why not?” So I ended up on the team.

I didn’t strive to get better. I was okay with where I was at. I won once (maybe twice) in my short tennis career, and that didn’t bother me at all. As long as I was getting PE credits, I didn’t care about how good I was. I had no intention of stepping it up.

Sadly, many people live their Christian lives with this attitude.

They think, “Hey, heaven sounds pretty cool. Being perfect would be sort of nice. Why not?” They jump on the “Jesus bandwagon” and don’t care about improving their walks with the Lord. They think they will go to heaven when they die, so they are okay with where they are at.

Or maybe they compare themselves with other people, and find that they better off than some people. They think, “Well Joe struggles with this, and I’m doing pretty good in that area. I’m fine!” Or, “Mary only reads her Bible once a day, but I read mine twice a day, good enough for me.”

Do these things characterize the way you think about your relationship with God? Are you okay with just being average, or even being a little “above” average? If you are doing “fine”, is that enough for you?

In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, Paul urges us to think and act differently in relation to our walks with the Lord:

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

We are called to walk in holiness and please God more and more.

We need to STEP.IT.UP.

This isn’t just a command from Paul, either. We are urged “in the Lord Jesus“. It is a command from Christ! We need to show our love for Him by glorifying Him and pleasing Him more and more.

God doesn’t want us to be content with our holiness. He doesn’t want us to reach our goals, and then slack off and relax.

So what are some practical ways in which you and I can step it up? There are so many areas that we can examine, but for the scope of our short study, let’s look at four.

1) Bible reading- The Thessalonians had already received the gospel and the preaching of the apostles. They knew what to do, so Paul encourages them to learn how they can please God more and more.

Unlike the Thessalonians, we have the wisdom and teachings of God in our Bibles. We don’t need to remember what the apostles preached on. We can look inside a book or on the internet to find out what God wants us to do.

We need to step it up in our Bible reading.

Are you content with  just reading the Scripture of the Day? After you drop a comment, are you clocking out? Or is your love and passion for the Word unquenchable?

Yes, one chapter of the Bible a day is above average for high school students. But don’t be content with being above average. Strive for excellence. Read through the Bible in a year. Grab a commentary on a book of the Bible and get into a deep study of the Word.

If your intake of the Word increases, you will find the Lord tremendously blessing your walk with Him.

2) Prayer- How often to you pray? Do you do it when you go to bed? When you wake up? Throughout the day? For how long are you talking to God?

Whatever your answers may be, don’t be content with what you’re at.

If you only pray at night, start praying in the morning too. If you don’t talk to God continuously, try to incorporate that into your daily routine (see the link below for more info on this). If you pray for teen minutes a day, aim to make it twenty.

Do you pray for other people, or are your prayers all about you? Do you lift up your pastors and your youth group in prayer? If not, I encourage you to do so!

God surely will bless the one who spends much time in passionate prayer.

(I posted a blog on prayer a while back, Talking to God, that may also help you dig deeper into the topic of prayer).

3) Encouragement- This is a hard one for me, but it is so important. The Bible often encourages us to encourage others (see for example, Hebrews 3:13 and Hebrews 10:24-25).

How can you step it up in your encouragement? Is it just something that happens on the weekends and at small groups?

Challenge yourself to text or Facebook message/chat someone each day of the week. Send them some short, encouraging words like, “Praying for you” or even them compliment on how you have seen them grow and mature in the Lord.

Though it may not seem like it, these words of encouragement go a long way and take only a small amount of time.

Make a habit of building up a brother or sister in Christ everyday.

4) Evangelism- Of all of the areas, this one is definitely the toughest for me. And in reality, it is the hardest for most Christians.

We care about what people think of us, how our teachers will treat us, or our own reputations. But if we are going to please the Lord and step it up, we are going to need to evangelize “more and more”.

Think about how many people you sit next to in your classes. And how many of them need to hear the gospel?

For me, the answer is a lot of them, if not all of them.

I know that I have many opportunities to get the Word about Christ out to them, and I can definitely step it up in doing so.

What about you? What effort are you making to witness to your peers? How can you step it up?

Don’t get stuck in an “evangelism comfort zone”. Please the Lord more and more by evangelizing more and more.

I hope that this post has made you think about the Lord’s call for us to please Him more and more. It is my prayer that you and I will not be content with being “average” Christians, but that we will strive for spiritual excellence and maturity.

You are walking to school. It’s 85 degrees at only 8 in the morning. The hill looks like it could go on forever; you may even be walking up one of the hills your parents used to walk up on their way to school – you know, uphill both ways.

And as you think about how amazing that cold In-N-Out shake will be when you get one at lunch, you hear a blood curdling scream.

Immediately you turn around. There is a little girl on the ground, bloodied up, her arm broken. Her tiny tricycle is so twisted and mangled you can barely make it out as you sprint over to her.

Do you help her? You want to mend her arm and clean her up. If you don’t tend to her wounds, she could pass out. But you don’t want to make it worse.

She is in tremendous pain, what are you going to do?

You may not know this, but we face a situation like this every single day. Maybe this illustration will make things clearer:

You are walking to school. There is absolutely no hill, and after a light and easy stroll, you arrive at your destination. You see your Christian friend Joe get out of his mom’s car. He screams at her, slams the door, and lets out a string of curse words under his breath. What do you do now? You want to help him and confront him, because he clearly is in sin. But you don’t want him to get mad at you. You care about his friendship. If you call him out, he could never talk to you again.

Much like the situation with the little girl, you have two choices. Do you take action, or do you walk away?

The reality is, we see our brothers and sisters in Christ in sin all the time. And what should we do? We care about them. We want them to be holy. But we also don’t want to anger them. We don’t want to make it worse.

Galatians 6:1 tells us exactly what we must do:

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

If we see a brother in sin, we should restore him. It may be awkward, it may not be at first well received, but it is the biblical and godly thing to do. Rebuke and restoration is seldom a pleasant experience. But it is necessary as Christians, as this verse indicates.

Before we move on, let’s take a closer look at some of the words used in this verse. This will give us a deeper understanding of what Paul is trying to say.

Brothers- All Christians are in one family. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. We are His body, each of us being separate members. When you restore someone, you are not restoring a stranger. You are restoring a child of the living God. This certainly makes this situation much more tender, but also much more serious.

any transgression- It doesn’t matter the sin, large or small. They could have screamed curses at their parents, or they could just have a bad attitude towards them. It could be on purpose, or even on accident. We must restore those who are caught in any transgression.

spiritual- This can be confusing. Today, “spirituality” is a hot topic. But against the various views of today’s culture, Paul uses the term “spiritual” to refer to Christians, mature Christians in particular.

From these words we learn that this is a serious and tender matter (“Brothers”), and that it should be done with any transgression or sin. Those who restore their brothers or sisters from sin must also be Christians, preferably mature.

Now let’s turn to the nature of this “restoration.”

1) The call is to restore not just to rebuke- What’s the difference? As I see it, a rebuke is a confrontation of sin. It is telling someone that they are wrong, and that they need to repent and ask God for forgiveness. But notice how Paul doesn’t use “rebuke”. He uses “restore”. Yes, we should call said person out when they sin, but we must also restore them. The word “restore” brings up images of “welcoming back” and “bringing in.” We should pray for them, even pray with them. We should show them kindness and mercy, and give them advice from the Scriptures. Don’t just confront and walk away, restore.

2) This is to be done in a gentle manner- Nothing will turn off an already angry or upset person by harsh and uncaring words.

Is your response to someone’s sin, “Hey moron, way to cuss at your mom. I’m sure God is so happy with you now.”? (I hope you could sense the sarcasm there).
Or is it, “Hey bro (or however girls address each other), I heard what happened with you and your mom. I am sorry it happened; that probably wasn’t the best way to deal with the situation. But don’t worry, God is forgiving of your sin! Christ has paid your penalty in full! Here is what the Bible says you should do in this situation…”
As you can see, these two confrontations are way different! One is harsh and rude, the other is gentle and loving.

3) Be careful when restoring someone- Galatians 6:1 tells us to keep watch on ourselves, that we may not also become tempted. It would make most sense that Paul is telling the Galatians to be aware of pride.

When you confront and restore someone there is the possibility to be tempted with pride. You may think, “Wow, Joe cusses at his mom, good thing I don’t do that. I’m such a better Christian than he is” or even, “I am so spiritual because I rebuked and restored someone. Look at how godly I am!” Paul tells us to be aware of this temptation, and elsewhere 1 Corinthians 10:12 reminds us to “take heed, lest we fall”. Here we also learn the reason why a spiritual (or mature) Christian should do the restoring- he or she is less likely to be tempted.

What are some practical things you and I can do to avoid being tempted when we confront a brother or sister in Christ?
a) Remember that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We most likely have sinned in the same way that our brother or sister that needs restoration has. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man (1 Corinthians 10:13).
b) Remember that it is by grace that we have been saved (Ephesians 2:8-9). Without God’s gift of faith, we would be dead in sin and children of wrath (Ephesians 2:1, 3)
c) Dwell on the fruits of the Spirit. God bears fruit in us. God makes us holy. Our walk with God depends ultimately on Him, not ourselves. Jesus says in John 15:5 that no one can do anything good apart from Him.
If you are tempted to puff up with pride when rebuking and restoring someone, remember these amazing truths of Scripture. God does want us to restore our fallen siblings in Christ, but in a gentle and humble manner.

It is my prayer that we all can learn from Galatians 6:1. God takes sin seriously in the lives of His children. So should we. Though a rebuke will almost always be painful and uncomfortable, let us be encouraged by the words of Proverbs 27:5, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love.”

If you were asked to list the attributes of God, would one of them be “jealousy”? Many people don’t respond well when you tell them that God is a jealous God. One of the world’s most famous atheists, Richard Dawkins, calls God “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction”, and lists His jealousy as one of the reasons why. How should we approach the topic of God’s jealousy? Is He jealous? Do we even want Him to be?

God is a jealous God- it is clearly taught in Scripture.  For God not to be jealous would be for God to cease to be God! It is a vital part of who He is:

“You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5).

“for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14).

“For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:24).

Dawkins was right when he said that God is a jealous God. But how do we explain His jealousy?

God is jealous for His people- We must understand that God is not jealous in the same way that we are jealous. He is not jealous for a next door neighbor’s car. He is not jealous of a schoolmates GPA. He doesn’t want things that are not rightfully His, unlike us. His jealousy is a holy jealous, a just jealousy. One chapter in the Bible that deals extensively with God’s jealousy is Ezekiel 16, where God is portrayed as the husband of a faithless bride, Israel.

“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare” (Ezekiel 16:6-7).

Here we see that God picks up His bride when she is “naked and bare.” He chose Israel to be His people not because of her own glory or worth, but because He loved her (Deuteronomy 7:6-8). When she was wallowing in her blood, He told her to live. He caused her to flourish and to grow. His people grew up in His care. We are just like Israel. God has chosen us and loved us, and not because of anything we have done. But how did His bride Israel, His beloved, respond? And similarly, how do we respond?

“But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his” (Ezekiel 16:15).

Despite the love that God has for Israel, she turned against Him. She trusted in her own power and her own beauty. She also played the whore; she committed “spiritual adultery” and worshiped idols. As this verse says, she “lavished her whorings on any passerby.” She gave her beauty to other things; she didn’t give her love to God. She prostituted herself to other nations and idols, while God wanted her to love Him. He wanted to be the One in whom Israel trusted. Today, God wants to be the only One we trust. He wants to be our only priority, our only love. God wants our time, our love, and our praise. But does He even deserve it?

Let’s first describe God’s jealousy with an illustration from marriage, like Ezekiel 16 does. Let’s say there was a couple (and I’m sure there are many like this) where the husband loves his wife, but his wife cheats on him multiple times. Is the husband wrong to want the love of his wife? Is he wrong for being angry that his wife is committing adultery? Not at all! It is the same way with God, except much more so. He deserves our love, our time, and our praise. He is jealous for it. But we trust in ourselves and love other things more than Him. This provokes God to jealousy, and rightly so! He is the faithful husband, we are the faithless bride.

The Bible also gives us a few reasons why God has the right to be jealous for us:
1) He created us- God formed man out of the dust; He breathed life into us. He made us for His glory, yet we have rebelled against Him in our sin.
2) He has shown us His mercy- The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). We deserve death and hell when we sin. But God shows us His mercy in that every time we sin, we are not sent to hell. If you are a Christian, God poured out His wrath for your sin on His Son Jesus Christ.
3) He has shown us His love- God sent His Son to save us from our sin. He did this because He so loved the world (John 3:16). We don’t deserve His love, for we are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3).
4) He has shown us His grace- God has given us so much. He has given us earthly blessings that we so often take for granted. And still He gives us more. He has given us the best gift of all, Jesus Christ. And since He has given us Christ, will He not also give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

Since God has done so much for us, can we really say that it is wrong for Him to be jealous? It is time that we stop seeing His jealousy as something despicable, but rather as a blessing!

And indeed it is a blessing! You should want a jealous God! You should want Him to want my love! Can you imagine what it would be like if God wasn’t jealous? If we left Him and committed idolatry and He was indifferent? If God was not jealous for His people, He would have left Israel in her blood and nakedness. And He would have left us too. It is partly because of God’s jealousy that we can confidently say that He will NEVER leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

It is my prayer that our hearts would come to know the God of the Bible, and that we would not only accept Him as He is, but praise Him. May we not see God’s jealousy as something that is abominable, but as an amazing attribute that we need to give God glory for! God is jealous for our love, so let’s give Him what He wants!

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23. ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Even Christians, who have been washed and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), sin. David, a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), sinned in a major way! Let’s face it, we ALL sin. And after you sin, you may ask yourself (as I often do), “Now what?” Here is some biblical advice on what to do after you have sinned.

1) Admit that you have sinned- There is no point in denying it. It is part of our nature. We sin because we are sinners. David does exactly this when he is confronted by the prophet Nathan for his sins with Bathsheba:

“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:3).

We mustn’t sweep our sin under the carpet and act as if it doesn’t matter, because it does.

2) Confess your sin to God and ask Him for forgiveness- Once you have admitted that you have sin, confess it to God! Ask for forgiveness! This is the model that David gives us in Psalm 51: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight… blot out all my iniquities” (v.4a, 9b).

John gives us some very encouraging words about confessing our sin and God’s forgiveness:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

When we confess our sins to God, we can rest assured in the fact God will forgive our sins. John doesn’t say that He might forgive us, or that He probably will forgive us, but that He will forgive us. This is a one-hundred percent guarantee! This is because God is faithful and just! If you confess your sin to God, He will forgive you. Let us not dwell too long on our sin, but confess it and rejoice in the forgiveness of God!

3) Beg the Lord to cleanse you from your sin and restore you to the joy of His salvation-

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me… Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” (Psalm 51:10,12)

After I sin I feel such a separation from God. And this is rightly so! I am a sinful wretch, and He is the holy Creator of the heavens and the earth! But God can close this separation, this gap. He can (and will if you ask) restore you to the joy of His salvation. He can make you feel close to Him once again. So let us all follow the example of David and beg the Lord to “renew a right spirit within [us]” and “restore [us] to the joy of [His] salvation.”

4) Read Psalm 51- Did you sin big? So did David. This chapter of the Bible is so helpful to read because not only does it give us a model of true contrition and brokenness over sin, it tells us what we need to do to act on this contrition! You are not alone! We ALL sin!

5) After admitting and confessing your sin and asking God to restore your joy in Him, dwell on the truths of the cross. There are many verses that deal with what happened at Calvary, but there are few (if any!) verses that address the cross in as clear and concise a way as 2 Corinthians 5:21. It says,

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

For the sake of His sheep, God make Him (Christ, who was perfect) to be sin for us. God punished His perfect Son for our sins! We no longer have to face the wrath of God! Christ drank the cup of His Father’s wrath at the cross! We no longer will taste the sting of death (1 Corinthians 15:55), but have victory (1 Corinthians 15:57)! And not only did God punish His Son in our place, He graciously credited the righteousness of Christ to us. “In Him we [are] the righteousness of God.” We are totally, completely, and fully perfect in front of a holy God! This is all because of Christ! And let me tell you, there is nothing better than dwelling on this incredible truth after sinning against God. Even though you have sinned against Him, your status before Him doesn’t change. Why? Because your status before God is not dependent on your own righteousness, but on the righteousness of Jesus Christ! I find that God uses the truths of the cross to restore joy in Him! After all, there is nothing more joyous than having a relationship with Jesus Christ! And we have this blessed relationship because of what was accomplished on the cross!

6) Live the rest of the day for the glory of God! If you are in Christ, you have been forgiven. Your sin has been paid for. There is absolutely no use in continuing to dwell on your sin. Don’t let yourself get down and depressed the rest of the day. God is forgiving, and in Him you have the power to defeat sin! (See Romans 6:6-14).

Now if you’re anything like me, you will sin a lot. I don’t do these things every time I sin (I sin WAY too much to do that!). I try to do these things when I sin big and do something I know was wrong. And at the end of the day, I try to recall all of the sins (though I remember very few of them) I committed and confess them to God. I ask for His forgiveness and ask Him to grant me obedience in the areas that I struggle with. Even though I am not able to confess each sin and repent of each individually, it still feels so good to confess my sins at the end of each day!

It is my prayer that this post will help you run to God after you have sinned. I am praying that God will sanctify each of us, and that we will be pleasing Him in everything we do!

I’m sure many of us have seen at least one movie where the main character goes to a party or some sort of special event where there is a list of guests.  And unfortunately, the main character’s name is not on the list. Or maybe you’ve gone to a restaurant with your family and you have a reservation, except the reservation part didn’t really work out so well. And what happens in each of these scenarios is that the person who thinks they are on the list or the family that “has” a reservation cannot get into the party or restaurant. Not being able to get into a party or not being able to eat dinner at a restaurant would be a big bummer, but what if this happens when you meet Jesus Christ? Perhaps the conversation will go something like this:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV)

To be honest, this passage sometimes scares me! These people say that they prophesied in the name of Christ, cast out demons in His name, and did many mighty works in His name, and what is the Lord’s response? “Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Or today, this could be, “Lord, did I not go to church every Sunday, and go to small groups every Wednesday, and read my Bible?” This brings up a question I’m sure all of us have had or will have sometime in our lives, the question, “How can I tell if I’m really a Christian?” Thankfully, the Bible makes it very clear what we must be doing if we are Christians. We will look briefly at three verses in the New Testament, all with a common theme.

The first verse, Matthew 7:21 is a verse from the passage we just looked at. It says,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

Only the one who does the will of the Father in heaven is truly a Christian. A profession of faith (saying that you are a Christian, “Lord, Lord”) is not enough. One must also do the will of the Father in heaven, but what is this will? I take “will” here to mean God’s desire for us to live a holy live. So the meaning of Matthew 7:21 is “Not everyone who says they are a Christian actually is. Only the one who does what I desire (living according to God’s commands) is truly saved.”

The second verse is 1 John 2:3 :

“And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.”

First one word of encouragement about this verse. Notice how it says “by this we KNOW that we have come from him.” This “know” is not a cross-your-fingers know, this is a for sure, without a doubt, KNOW! You can KNOW, 100%, that you are a Christian (see also 1 John 5:13, the main reason that John wrote this epistle). How can we know if we are saved? If we keep his commandments. If we obey God’s will, if we keep His commandments, we can KNOW if we are saved! That is an encouraging thought!

The final verse we will be looking at is John 14:15

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

A Christian will love Jesus. That much is obvious. And a lot of people will say that they love Jesus if you ask them. And Jesus knew this when He was talking to His disciples. He knew that people did profess a love for Him (like Judas) and that people would profess a love for Him, but this love would be a false love. So He tells them that if they love Him, they will obey His commands. Jesus repeats the same idea  3 more times in John 14 (v.21, 23, and 24), so it is clearly a point that He wanted to get across. The test to see if you love Jesus in simple! Do you obey His commands?

From all of these verses (and these are not the only ones in the Bible), we can see clearly that someone who is truly saved will obey God’s commands. You can have assurance of salvation if you obey God’s commands! If your faith produces works, you ARE saved! And that is SO encouraging!

Above all, however, the assurance of salvation is a gift from God. If you are unsure if you are saved, ask God to give you assurance (see Ephesians 1:18). I also encourage you to read through the books James (especially chapter 2:14-26) and 1 John in the Bible. They are very convicting but also so encouraging and assuring if you are a Christian!

It is my prayer that this post will help you if you are struggling with assurance of salvation. If you aren’t struggling with assurance of salvation, rejoice in the fact that God in His amazing grace has saved you!

I think all of us would agree that evil is a big deal. I hope that all of us would also agree that evil is not a good thing, and is a serious problem in this world. Movies are made about the struggle between good and evil, and sadly, that struggle rages on in the real world. When bad things are brought up, one question always pops up: “Where was God?” And to answer that question we will look at two verses in the Old Testament. The first verse we will look at is Amos 3:6b:

“Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?” (ESV)

This seems really shocking! It becomes even more shocking when the literal translation of the word “disaster” is “evil.” God bringing disaster/evil upon a city? No! And yet that is what this verse says! God is not absent from the bad things that happen, He has done them. Who controls evil? From this verse, it seems pretty clear that God controls evil.

Isaiah 45:7 says, “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things.”

Just to kill two birds with one stone, this verse has caused many, including myself, to stumble. In the King James Version of the Bible, this verse is translated “create evil.” Yet we know that God cannot create evil! This was cleared up for me by R.C. Sproul in his book Knowing Scripture, which I highly recommend. Sproul says that the NASB and the ESV translations of the word “evil” to “calamity” is best. He also notes that this verse is what is called an antithetic parallelism, which is just a way of contrasting two antithetical, or opposite things. God forms light, but creates darkness, He makes well-being and creates calamity. Well-being (or peace) is contrasted with calamity or distress. The calamity or evil here is not contrasted with goodness or righteousness, but well-being (or peace). Nonetheless, this verse clearly states that God brings distress or calamity! We still have a bit of a problem!

Before we throw a red flag on the play, let’s  note three important things about God being in control over evil:

1)  If God is not in control over evil, He is not all-powerful- If God cannot control evil, then someone else does! This someone else would be Satan. If this is true, Satan wields the power over evil and God is in fact weaker than the devil in certain aspects. I want a God that is all-powerful. I want a God that can one day vanquish evil and punish it! But if God is not in control over evil, this cannot happen.

2) If God did not allow evil, some of His attributes would not be made known- If there was no sin, there would be no need for God to punish it. There goes His justice. If there was no need for God to punish sin because no evil existed, then He would not have a choice to save desperate sinners like you and I. There goes His grace, love, and mercy. The Bible does describe God as “holy, holy, holy” in the midst of perfect angels (see Isaiah 6), but if there was no sin and unrighteousness, God’s holiness and righteousness could not be praised to the extent that it is now. We would have nothing unrighteous to compare God’s holiness to! If there was no evil, we would know so much less about the God who created us!

3) God uses evil for good. The Bible has two great examples of how God uses evil for good.

The first is the story of Joseph. Joseph’s brothers are jealous of him, they sell him into slavery, and then Joseph ends up second in command over all of Egypt. Was Joseph’s brothers’ jealousy sin? Yes. Was their selling of Joseph into slavery evil? Yes. But did God use all of these events for good? Of course! Joseph says to his brothers in Genesis 50:20: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” God turned the horrible jealousy and sin of Joseph’s brothers into a way to bring the Israelites into Egypt. Not to mention, I don’t think Joseph was complaining about his new-found position of power.

The second is much more applicable, and the greatest display of God’s use of evil for good. It is the story of the cross. Jesus Christ, God in human likeness, came down to the earth and was beaten, mocked, and punished by death on a cross. This was undoubtedly evil. But if this didn’t happen, there would be no forgiveness of sins. If God had not punished His Son in our place, if He did not let the guards whip Jesus, if He spared His Son from death, we would all still be dead in sin. Jesus had to endure the wrath of God because of your sin and my sin! The murder of the Son of God was evil. But the forgiveness that it brought it SO good! Personally, I am so thankful that God used the evil of the cross for good!

Now you might be thinking, “Great, now that I know that God controls evil, so what?” For me, there were a couple of things that this new discovery led me to do:

1) I was comforted in the Lord. This may seem strange, but I am so glad that a good God controls evil, as opposed to Satan. When disaster or calamity (to use the words from our two verses above) strikes me, I know that the Lord is in control and not Satan. Actually, it is extremely comforting to me.

2) I trusted in God more. I realized that if the Lord controls everything in my life, and He is with me, who can stand against me? To echo Paul’s words in Romans 8:31, if God is for me, who can be against me? The promise of Romans 8:28 also became so much dearer to me. ALL things, even evil, are being worked together for my good by God.

It is my prayer that whether this information is new or old, you will be driven to the Lord. Take comfort in the fact that He controls everything, and because He does, no one can touch you without His permission.

If you are more interested in this topic, I deeply encourage you to download and listen to Pastor Mike’s sermons on the Theodicy of God and the Decrees and Sovereignty of God from Compass Night a couple of years ago. These can be found on the Compass Bible Church podcast. These two lectures have been invaluable for me in my study of God and His control over all things, including evil.

Why do we not talk to God more? If you had a chance to talk to your favorite celebrity, or the future spouse of your dreams, wouldn’t you do it? We have the privilege to talk to the God of the universe, the God who created all things, and yet we don’t do it as often as we should, sometimes not at all. Can you imagine what it would be like if your parents didn’t talk for an entire day? I’m not sure about you, but if that happened with my parents, I would think something huge was going on. It is the same thing when we don’t talk to God, but on a much larger scale. This is not between husband and wife, but between Creator and creature, between Lord and servant.

There have been three verses/passages that have really helped me understand prayer much better. I encourage you to read them and meditate on what they mean, and how you can improve your prayer life.

The first is 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “pray without ceasing”

Short, simple, and to the point. We are called to pray without ceasing. But how do we do that? Should we pray in class and ignore our teachers? Should we pray when we’re reading the Bible? (I don’t know about you, but my multitasking skills aren’t there yet). What about when we’re driving? The way that this verse was explained to me was that we are supposed to “text” God. To pray without ceasing is not to be on our knees 24/7, but to be communicating with God throughout the day. It could be a simple “Thank you, Lord, for this blessing” or a quick “Lord, give me strength to endure this temptation.” Short prayers like this will keep us focused on God as we seek Him each day. We shouldn’t neglect the long “phone call” (to keep the analogy going) prayers to God, for we should be talking to God each day for a prolonged amount of time, but we also need to be in constant communication with Him.

The second passage is John 14:13-14, where Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

These verses are often misunderstood. I know I was confused when I first read them! At first glance, these verses can mean “Dear Lord, I want a Porsche. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.” And BAM! There’s a Porsche on the driveway. As much as we want these verses to mean that we can get anything we want if we add “in Jesus’ Name, Amen” to the end of our prayers, it is not so. These verses mean that if we pray for things where “the Father [will] be glorified in the Son”, then they will be done. This ought to give us hope and confidence when we pray. If we ask the Lord to help us fight a particular sin, or to save a certain friend, for His glory and according to His will, these verses say that it will be done! This needs to radically change our prayer lives! If we are praying according to the desires of Jesus, our prayers will be answered!

The final passage is James 5:16b, which says: “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

This verse is straightforward as well. A righteous man’s prayer will be effective. If we are living holy lives, then God will use our prayers in awesome ways! But if we are living a life of sin and debauchery, God will not be as willing, if willing at all, to answer us when we ask Him for things. Now we shouldn’t wait until we are living a righteous life to pray, but we should reflect on this verse and seek to trust in the Lord more, so that our prayers will be more effective.

These verses really help me to understand how I can improve my prayer life, and what a blessing it is to have the ability to pray. But I hope that you and I will not just read them and meditate on them, but that we will actually put them into practice and pray! One of the most common excuses for why we don’t pray is that we don’t have enough time. But it’s summer! We have tons of time, maybe even too much time! So let’s be “texting” and “calling” God more and more, starting right now.

When one thinks of the word “curse” usually images of witches and wizards come to mind. For some, it is Harry Potter. For me, it is a Pokemon move that always manages to dominate me. For the sports-minded people out there, the word curse may bring up a horrid (or if you hate Boston, a joyous) period in Major League Baseball. The most famous “curse” in professional baseball (and professional sports, for that matter) is the “Curse of the Bambino”. If you type “the curse” into Google, one of the first hits that pops up is about the Curse of the Bambino. This curse allegedly started when the Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth (sometimes called the Bambino) to the New York Yankees in the off-season of 1919-1920. Before this trade, Boston was the most successful team in baseball. But misfortune struck the Red Sox after Babe Ruth departed to the Yankees, and they did not win a World Series until 2004. The New York Yankees, on the other hand, became the best team in baseball. Now while this curse may be interesting and entertaining (if you happen to like the New York Yankees) there is a curse that the Bible describes that is much more serious.

And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:17-19 (ESV)

Because of Adam’s sin, God pronounces a curse on the ground. As verse 19 explains, Adam’s sin also brought death. Paul talks about this curse as well in Romans 5:12-21. He says in verse 12: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned”. So we see in both of these verses that Adam’s sin brought a curse upon mankind, it brought condemnation and death.

But Romans 5 does not close on a somber note, but rather, a joyous one! Romans 5:17 says:
“For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

What stands out in this verse are the words “much more”. The death that reigned was powerful. So powerful that ALL men (except for Enoch and Elijah, who were taken up to heaven by God) have died! But much more powerful is the grace of God! Much more powerfully will those who have received the grace of God reign in life (as opposed to death) through Jesus Christ! In Jesus Christ the curse is not only done away with, but it is reversed! We still will die (unless the Lord returns, MARANATHA!), but now death has become a gain (Philippians 1:21). We are spared from the wrath of God, AND we have eternal life because of Christ! And that is an incredible thing!

All too often I forget the amazing reality of the work of Christ. All too often I fail to remember how death and sin reigned in me, but because of Jesus Christ I can walk in a newness of life (Romans 6:4). I need to be praising God and living a new life because of this! I know that God’s grace is WAY more powerful than sin and death, and I need this grace to help me abstain and flee from sin! Let us constantly dwell on the power of the Lord’s grace, and let us never take for granted Jesus Christ, through whom the curse has been reversed!