“My Father, whom you claim as your God…” - John 8:54
Be careful not to be like the people in the crowd who initially put their faith in Jesus, then tried to murder Him after a brief verbal exchange in which He bore witness to the falsehood from which they refuse to depart, the deceitfulness and love of lies characteristic of their father, the devil, which causes them to reject Him because they reject God (8:12-59). As Jesus says elsewhere, and the other scriptures also testify, merely to believe in Him and claim His name means nothing in itself, though it is also the bedrock of our salvation. When Jesus speaks the truth to us, we have to believe and obey, for He is the Truth — He alone, and nothing else. If we do not believe, it is because we have not obeyed and we want nothing to do with Him. What good is it for our sins to be forgiven if we refuse to depart from them? If we cling to sin, to false things, we call Jesus a liar and would stone Him to death if we had the chance.
→ Read more…How long, Lord? How long will these people plunge headlong toward destruction and try to destroy everyone else before they themselves perish?
Rage and helplessness—my heart gasps, my mouth opens but no words come. How do you put up with this, O God? How can you bear it when everyone gives themselves over to every lie and proclaims each one to be the truth, each one to be You, and even above You? They are murderers, Lord. Every liar is a murderer.
→ Read more…We have one task, and it is in conflict with all others. Our task is the continuation of our Lord’s mission: to seek and save what was lost—to save sinners. This is the task for which God the Father planned from eternity past to send His Son to accomplish with all His being. Only this task—which alone is obedience to the will of God—spans every era, every place, and the needs of every person and situation. We must not allow ourselves to seek space for other priorities—no matter how necessary, good, or even “Christian” they might seem—for these will only and always destroy the work of God and deceive us about who He is and why He came.
→ Read more…Generous Father, Living God, we pray for the one who would leap to his feet and follow you with the whole, simple heart of a child if only he heard but a rumor of you passing by in the street. Stop his ears to the words of those who would preach to him a gospel they themselves deny by twisting the words of the Holy One. Save him from those who would seek him as a convert and then turn him into twice as much a son of hell as themselves. Send workers into your harvest fields who will make known to men and women like him what you, O Lord, have willed from the beginning. What chance, Holy One, do they have if you yourself do not come down to declare your name? For nobody on earth knows you anymore; they have all turned aside to foreign gods. But you have come to us, God With Us, therefore we are saved. Purge your church, Lord, of those who imagine themselves the faithful remnant yet enthrone the evil one on the altar of your Son. May we be found faithful and dilligent when our master returns, and may the one who would follow you hear of your name.
→ Read more…To the one who must follow his Lord, this is what God says:
I know you are afraid to presume to speak in the manner to which I have called you. You are right to fear what may come, but I still require you to obey. If you speak in my name the words I have placed in you from your infancy, do not think you are doing more than everyone I created does whenever they open their mouths. For each one proclaims something about me when the sun rises and when the sun sets, when they stand up and when they sit down, when they come in and when they go out. This one says, “God is like this.” That one says, “God is like that.” Even my own people, who I have called by my name, speak of me thus: “God means this. He does not mean that. Surely this is what the Lord says. See, He has written it in this book.” But they speak not what is written. They speak their own souls and hasten to look away when I pass by with my Spirit.
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