My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.
— Jeremiah 16:17
No sin is private. It may be secret but it is not private. It is a great error to hold, as some do, that each man's conduct is his own business unless his acts infringe on the rights of others. "My liberty ends where yours begins" is true, but that is not all the truth. No one ever has the right to commit an evil act, no matter how secret. God wills that men should be free, but not that they be free to commit sin. Sin is three-dimensional and has consequences in three directions: toward God, toward self and toward society. It alienates from God, degrades self and injures others. Adam's is the classic example of a secret sin that overflowed to the injury of all mankind. History provides examples of persons so placed that their sins had wide and injurious effect upon their generation.
Such men were Nero, Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin, to name but four. These men dramatized the destructive social results of personal sin; but every sin, every sinner injures the world and harms society, though the effects may be milder and less noticeable. Have you ever wondered what the world would be like today if Napoleon had become a Christian when he was in his teens? Or if Hitler had learned to control his temper? Or if Stalin had been tenderhearted? Or if Himmler had fainted at the sight of blood? Or if Goebles had become a missionary to Patagonia? Or if the twelve men in the Kremlin should get converted to Christianity? Or if all businessmen should suddenly turn honest? Or if every politician should stop lying?
thought
Some sin seems strictly personal, its effects internal only. But even the most personal sin can affect our attitudes, judgments and values, all of which influence our behavior toward others.
prayer
Father, Satan tries to delude me with the fallacy of secret sin but all sin is known to You. You know sin's effects on me and on others.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
— Psalm 37:7
Of one thing we may be sure; we can never escape the external stimuli that cause vexation. The world is full of them and though we were to retreat to a cave and live the remainder of our days alone, we still could not lose them. The rough floor of our cave would chafe us, the weather would irritate us and the very silence would cause us to fret. Deliverance from a fretting spirit may be by blood and fire, by humility, self-abnegation and a patient carrying of the cross. There will always be "evildoers" and "workers of iniquity," and for the most part they will appear to succeed while the forces of righteousness will seem to fail.
The wicked will always have the money and the talent and the publicity and the numbers, while the righteous will be few and poor and unknown. The prayerless Christian will surely misread the signs and fret against the circumstances. That is what the Spirit warns us against. Let us look out calmly upon the world; or better yet, let us look down upon it from above where Christ is seated and we are seated in Him. Though the wicked spread himself like "a green tree in its native soil" (Psalm 37:35), it is only for a moment. Soon he passes away and is not. But "the salvation of the righteous comes from the LORD; he is their stronghold in time of trouble" (verse 39). This knowledge should cure the fretting spirit.
thought
God's timing is usually quite different from ours but it fully accords with His will and purpose. It is for us to wait ? patiently, faithfully wait for the Lord. Lay your cause for fretting before Him today and leave it there!
prayer
Lord, all my anxiety I bring to You. Help me to leave it with You!
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret ? it leads only to evil.
— Psalm 37:8
It was not to the unregenerate that the words "Do not fret" were spoken, but to God-fearing persons capable of understanding spiritual things. We Christians need to watch and pray lest we fall into this temptation and spoil our Christian testimony by an irritable spirit under the stress and strain of life. It requires great care and a true knowledge of ourselves to distinguish a spiritual burden from religious irritation. We cannot close our minds to everything that is happening around us. We dare not rest at ease in Zion when the church is so desperately in need of spiritually sensitive men and women who can see her faults and try to call her back to the path of righteousness.
The prophets and apostles of Bible times carried in their hearts such crushing burdens for God's wayward people that they could say, "My tears have been my food day and night" (Psalm 42:3), and "Oh that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people" (Jeremiah 9:1). These men were heavy with a true burden. What they felt was not vexation but acute concern for the honor of God and the souls of men. By nature some persons fret easily. They have difficulty separating their personal antipathies from the burden of the Spirit. When they are grieved they can hardly say whether it is a pure and charitable thing or merely irritation set up by other Christians having opinions different from their own.
thought
There are valid prayer burdens and there are weights of worry. The difference God will show us as we wait before Him. Then, let's lay aside the worry weights and bring the prayer burdens where they belong ? to Him.
prayer
O God, deliver me from fretting and teach me to bring legitimate prayer burdens to You.
Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong.
— Psalm 37:1
The Holy Spirit in Psalm 37:1 admonishes us to beware of irritation in our religious lives: "Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong." The word "fret" comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon, and carries with it such a variety of meanings as bring a rather pained smile to our faces. Notice how they expose us and locate us behind our disguises. The primary meaning of the word is to eat, and from there it has been extended with rare honesty to cover most of the manifestations of an irritable disposition. "To eat away; to gnaw; to chafe; to gall; to vex; to worry; to agitate; to wear away"; so says Webster, and all who have felt the exhausting, corrosive effects of fretfulness know how accurately the description fits the facts.
Now, the grace of God in the human heart works to calm the agitation that normally accompanies life in such a world as ours. The Holy Spirit acts as a lubricant to reduce the friction to a minimum and to stop the fretting and chafing in their grosser phases. But for most of us the problem is not as simple as that. Fretfulness may be trimmed down to the ground and its roots remain alive deep within the soul, there growing and extending themselves all unsuspected, sending up their old poisonous shoots under other names and other appearances.
thought
Fretfulness can rob us of the peace and joy of Christ. We are easy prey to fretfulness when our gaze is fixed on people and circumstances rather than upon God before whom we are to be still and wait patiently (Psm. 37:7).
prayer
Thank You, Lord, You are God, not me!
Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
— Hebrews 7:27
And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:10-12). And if that is not plain enough the inspired writer further says, "Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy" (verse 14); and, "where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin" (verse 18).
The teaching of the New Testament is not that there is a perpetual sacrifice, but that there is one sacrifice of perpetual efficacy. The thought that Christ's sacrifice needs to be repeated is obnoxious to the spirit of biblical theology and an affront to the tears and sweat and blood and death of the Lamb of God. Obviously our Catholic friends are in serious error here, and the kind thing is not that we in the name of tolerance smile away their error, but that we point it out and try to correct it.
thought
Christ died for our sin. He does not keep on dying. He rose again and is seated at the Father's right hand! Our sin today may be forgiven as we confess it because of the perpetual efficacy of Christ's sacrifice.
prayer
O Christ, the effects of Your sacrifice for sin continue on and on and on! Hallelujah!
And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
— Hebrews 10:10
In a friendly conversation with a Catholic priest I learned from the lips of this appointed spokesman of the Roman Church the philosophy of the Mass. He started with the blood offering of Abel and traced the practice of propitiatory sacrifice down through the Scriptures to the cross. "There must always be a sacrifice," he said, "and in the Mass the sacrifice is repeated each time the bread and wine are consecrated on the altar.
At each celebration of the Mass the sacrifice of Christ is repeated." If the Mass rests upon the notion of the perpetual sacrifice then its foundation is only sand, for the New Testament is very clear that Christ's sacrifice is a once-for-all act and can never be repeated. Whatever tradition and dogma may say, thus saith the Lord. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:10-12). And if that is not plain enough the inspired writer further says, "Because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy" (verse 14); and, "where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin" (verse 18).
thought
Christ has made the sin sacrifice no one else could ever offer. By His death our sin-debt is fully and eternally paid. Amazing love and amazing grace!
prayer
Beyond my comprehension, Father, is Christ's death for me. And because of His unique sacrifice, sin's power over me is broken. May I so live..
You are the light of the world. . . .
— Matthew 5:14a
Once the prophet, the apostle, the reformer, saw a vision or heard a voice, or in later times had an encounter with God through the holy Scriptures and went out firm and sure to declare the Word of the Lord. Now we watch the world to get our next cue and when we have been tipped off as to what our latest "burden of the Word of the LORD" (Zechariah 12:1, KJV) shall be, we rush out and breathlessly declare the expected message as if we had been with Moses on Mount Sinai. It takes a war, an election, race tensions or an outbreak of juvenile crime to afford subject matter for our modern prophets. . . .
The world always moves first and the church comes meekly after, trying pitifully to look and sound like her model and at the same time maintain a weak religious testimony by inserting a dutiful commercial now and then to the effect that everybody ought to accept Jesus and be born again. Secularized fundamentalism is a horrible thing, a very horrible thing, much worse in my opinion than honest modernism or outright atheism. It is all a kind of heart heterodoxy existing along with creedal orthodoxy. Its true master may be discovered by noting whom it admires and imitates. The test is, Whom do these Christians want to be like? Who excites them and makes their eyes shine with pleasure? Whom go they forth to see? Whose techniques do they borrow? Never the meek soul, never the godly saint, never the self-effacing, cross-carrying follower of Jesus. Always the big wheel, the celebrity, the star, the VIP ? provided of course that these persons have given a "testimony" in favor of Christ somewhere in the midst of the fleshly, vain world of artificial lights and synthetic sounds which they inhabit.
The sad thing about all this is its effect upon a new generation of Christians. Whole companies of young people are growing up who have known nothing else but the degenerate brand of Christianity now passing for the religion of Christ. They are the innocent victims of a condition which they did not help to create. Not they but a spiritually emasculated leadership must answer for their plight. What is the remedy? It is simple. A radical return to New Testament Christianity both in message and in method. A bold repudiation of the world and a taking up of the cross. Such a return on any wide scale will mean a reformation of vast proportion. Some that are now high will be brought low and many of the humble will be exalted. It will mean a moral revolution. How many are willing to pay the price?
thought
In our desire to win the world there is the danger of becoming like it. What would the ministry of Paul, Peter, John the Baptist, Christ Himself be like in our context today? Worship service emcees, highly contemporary music, a parade of celebrities, sermonettes addressing felt needs or self-crucifixion and cross-bearing?
prayer
In this world give me discernment, Lord, as to how to reach out to people in Spirit-anointed mini
A great deal can be learned about people by observing whom and what they imitate.
The weak, for instance, imitate the strong; never the reverse.
The poor imitate the rich.
The self-assured are imitated by the timid and uncertain, the genuine is imitated by the counterfeit, and people all tend to imitate what they admire.
By this definition power today lies with the world, not with the church, for it is the world that initiates and the church that imitates what she has initiated. By this definition the church admires the world. The church is uncertain and looks to the world for assurance. A weak church is aping a strong world to the amusement of intelligent sinners and to her own everlasting shame.
Should any reader be inclined to dispute these conclusions, I ask him to take a look around.
Look into almost any evangelical publication, browse through our bookstores, attend our youth gatherings, drop in on one of our summer conferences or glance at the church page of any of our big city newspapers.
The page that looks most like the theatrical page is the one devoted to the churches, usually appearing on Saturday. And the similarity is not accidental, but organic.
This servile imitation of the world is for the most part practiced by those churches that claim for themselves a superior degree of spirituality and boldly declare their adherence to the letter of the Word.
In fact, neither the old-line ritualistic churches nor those that are openly modernistic have been as guilty of such flagrant world-worship as the gospel churches have.
Verse
You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.
— First Thessalonians 1:6
thought
The challenge is to be lights to the world not mirrors reflecting it. Perhaps part of the problem lies in our emphasis on congregational growth in numbers rather than in Christlike living.
prayer
Lord, may I be not a world imitator, but of those who model You in life and ministry even at great personal cost.verse
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
At the risk of shocking some tender-minded persons, I venture to list here a few words and phrases that to millions of evangelical Christians have no longer an identifiable content and are used merely as religious sounds without any relation to reality.
They have meaning, and they are good and sacred words, but they have no meaning as used by the speaker and as heard by the listener in the average religious gathering.
Here they are: victory, heart and life, all out for God, to the glory of God, receive a blessing, conviction, faith, revival, consecration, the fullness of God, by the grace of God, on fire for God, born again, filled with the Spirit, hallelujah, accept Christ, the will of God, joy and peace, following the Lord and there are scores of others.
We have reared a temple of religious words comfortably disassociated from reality.
And we will soon stand before that just and gentle Monarch who told us that we should give an account of every idle word.
God have mercy on us.
verse
Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.
— Ecclesiastes 5:7
thought
Do you find yourself hiding behind phrases and terms which sound spiritual but for you are empty of reality? Let's practice the presence of God and stand in awe of Him. Then all forms of religious pretense we will cast aside.
prayer
Expose to me, Father, those meaningless words I use. I want to know You and be real in life and word.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/