Meditations

Revelation 2:8-11; 3:7-13 — Are you gaining an incorruptible crown?

Twice the Lord gives credit to the church at Philadelphia for keeping His Word. They were well on their way to gaining an incorruptible crown!

Many people despise God’s Word by holding it in total disregard. They do not respect it, they do not read it, they do not want anything to do with it. They know they despise His law and they don’t care. Others despise God’s Word by having an improper legalistic view of it. They see it as a rule book to be enforced in their lives and the lives of others. Their primary concern is for the specifics of the law, not its Spirit. In their legalistic approach to the Word, they trivialize it by not loving it.

Many Christians sincerely love the Word of the Lord. They treasure it. They live by it as best they know. They live joyfully in the assurance that they are striving to live in obedience. They also keep on searching the Scriptures, asking God for further knowledge of His will so that they might walk in that also.

Which of those are you? Read it all

Revelation 3:1-6,14-22 — Is your church suffering through the perils and dangers of complacency and lukewarmness?

Notice two reasons in this passage for the Lord calling on His people to repent, essentially for having disregarded the dangers of complacency:

• Deadness toward God (Revelation 3:3)
• Lukewarmness toward God (Revelation 3:19)

That a church or an individual is weak and struggling spiritually is not a sign to give up and give in. Not at all!

Look at the church in Sardis. They were dead as a church. Only a few individuals had not contaminated themselves with the world. But all was not lost. They still had the opportunity to become overcomers. Jesus called on them to “strengthen the things which remain.” They needed to wake up and remember and hang on and repent.

The Lord rebuked the Laodiceans for their lukewarmness. Then He told them to be zealous and repent. Read it all

Matthew 2:11-15; Galatians 4:3-7; Revelation 12:1-5 — Jesus, wonderful in His birth

Over the years, I have written much pertaining to Christmas, Christ’s birth, and the Incarnation. This post got quite long. Just so you know at this stage, here are the main sections:

• Has the Baby grown up yet?
• The wise seek Jesus
• Questions to chew
• What Christmas means to me
• Is Christmas for the Christian?
• What makes a Christmas celebration Christian?

Now, let’s get to it!

He’s wonderful in His birth, but Has the Baby grown up yet?

Look around you with some attention to the obvious details, and you would think the answer is negative. This alleged celebration of Jesus’ birth mostly takes us back to His babyhood and infrequently focuses on His adulthood. In the US, the birthdays of certain Presidents rate a national holiday of sorts. That is appropriate for any country to do. But how inspirational would it be for the citizenry to remember these men only as newborn infants?

Has the Baby grown up yet? Imagine celebrating your birthday the way Christmas is celebrated! We would hang up pictures of you in your crib, but generally disregard you in favor of other festive and seasonal activities. And if anyone would get around to remembering you, it would be to reminisce about your birth. Maybe you’d get a baby rattle for a gift. Read it all

Revelation 2:18-29 — Do not tolerate the leaven of unsound teaching!

The Son of God had some very good things to say about the church at Thyatira. I would be so happy and blessed and thrilled and joyful and satisfied to have this said of my home congregation: “I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first” (Revelation 2:19).

But the church in Thyatira was too tolerant of some unsound teachers and their unsound teaching. Though quite a few in the church did not embrace that unsound doctrine, they still tolerated its presence and presentation in their midst.

The Son of God declared judgment on the unfaithful and called on the faithful to hold fast to truth. Do not let go of sound doctrine! And do not coexist with unsound teaching.

If the shoe fits, my friend, wear it. Or as the Son of God said repeatedly, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Revelation 2:29 and elsewhere).Read it all

Revelation 2:1-7,12-17 — Do these symptoms of spiritual decline match your spiritual symptoms?

I am blessed to be reminded of a few basic things in my reading of this passage again:

• I need not succumb to these symptoms of spiritual decline.
• God still claimed these churches as His own, even in their state at the time of receiving God’s messages. That didn’t make their various states safe. Neither does it mean that if my church can achieve to their good, God can live with their bad among us. Theirs were perilous states!
• God notices everything — both bad and good. He doesn’t become so incensed at and offended by the wrong that He misses or disregards the right.
• The good does not counterbalance or make up for the bad. No matter how much right I do or how much holiness I manifest, it does not make amends for my wrong. I must repent of my sin and return to Christlikeness in that area of failure.
• God reaches out to His people who slip or wander. His loving faithfulness and redemptive grace will not leave me alone. It behooves me to heed the concerns and corrections of those whom He sends to me with His message. I must not respond with a counterattack as though that will somehow lessen my guilt and my need for repentance. That is a contemptible, unrighteous, self-justifying, damnable response for it takes the place of and reveals a lack of godly sorrow and repentance.
• My first love for God is something to guard and cultivate. It is something to grow in, but never outgrow. It is something to build on, not walk away from. It is something to cherish, not replace and abandon.
• The solution to having left my first love is not to do more good, to somehow be more faithful otherwise. The solution spelled out by the Lover of my soul is a repentant return. Otherwise, I lose my place with Him and find myself on the wrong side of universal conflict…no matter how nicely my deeds seem to burnish my resum‚.
• God also clearly spells out the result of overcoming all that detracts from my first love:

• “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7).
• “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Revelation 2:17).

I sit here and still remember how I sat there in stunned astonishmentRead it all