From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Morning and Evening Evening ... Revelation 12:7 Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels. War always will rage between the two great sovereignties until one or other be crushed. Peace between good and evil is an impossibility; the very pretence of it would, in fact, be the triumph of the powers of darkness. Michael will always fight; his holy soul is vexed with sin, and will not endure it. Jesus will always be the dragon's foe, and that not in a quiet sense, but actively, vigorously, with full determination to exterminate evil. All His servants, whether angels in heaven or messengers on earth, will and must fight; they are born to be warriors-at the cross they enter into covenant never to make truce with evil; they are a warlike company, firm in defence and fierce in attack. The duty of every soldier in the army of the Lord is daily, with all his heart, and soul, and strength, to fight against the dragon. The dragon and his angels will not decline the affray; they are incessant in their onslaughts, sparing no weapon, fair or foul. We are foolish to expect to serve God without opposition: the more zealous we are, the more sure are we to be assailed by the myrmidons of hell. The church may become slothful, but not so her great antagonist; his restless spirit never suffers the war to pause; he hates the woman's seed, and would fain devour the church if he could. The servants of Satan partake much of the old dragon's energy, and are usually an active race. War rages all around, and to dream of peace is dangerous and futile. Glory be to God, we know the end of the war. The great dragon shall be cast out and for ever destroyed, while Jesus and they who are with Him shall receive the crown. Let us sharpen our swords to-night, and pray the Holy Spirit to nerve our arms for the conflict. Never battle so important, never crown so glorious. Every man to his post, ye warriors of the cross, and may the Lord tread Satan under your feet shortly! Colossians 3:9-10 (9) Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; (10) And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: We are in the image of Him who created the new man! The Christian has had a radical, life-changing experience in which he has put off the old man and is putting on a new self. The apostle illustrates this through the mundane practice of changing clothes. One does not become naked in the blink of an eye. The taking off of one's clothes is done one piece at a time. In the same manner, one does not become fully clothed all at once, but each piece of clothing is put on in an orderly manner. It is a process. We have all heard the expression, "Clothes make the man." People come to different conclusions about or have different impressions of the same person when they see him dressed in different clothing. Sociologists, wanting to see how much a person's appearance affected others, took a man, had him grow his beard a bit scraggly, and placed him on a street corner in dirty, raggedy clothes. His orders were to march across the street against the "don't walk" sign. Nobody followed him. They took the same man, cleaned him up, dressed him in a nice business suit, and put him on the same street corner. He did the same thing-walked across the street against the "don't walk" sign-and everybody on the corner followed him! Nothing changed inside the man; only what was on the outside of the man changed! In the Bible God uses clothing as a symbol of righteousness. Fine linen, clean and white, is symbolic of the righteousness of the saints ( Revelation 19:8). Dirty, filthy clothing, on the other hand, symbolizes of unrighteousness of iniquity ( Isaiah 64:6). Remember that clothing is put on one piece at a time as part of a process. But putting on clothing is just an illustration. What Paul wants us to understand is that Christians we are to put on are the elements of a new nature that exhibits itself in the person's conduct. It is vital to understand what is involved here because we will conform to somebody else. Clothing fashions illustrate this. Designers change the design of clothing somewhat, and they get people in the public eye to wear the new style. Then, because others want to conform to what is "in," they buy the clothing that celebrities are wearing. They are conforming to an image. Even as people have a tendency to copy what others wear, they also have a tendency to copy what other people are. Humans will conform to something. They will conform to an image! As Christians, what we conform to is exceedingly more important-it involves eternal life! What we are interested in are the elements of a new nature that are illustrated by pieces of clothing put on one piece at a time. What or who are we going to conform to? Man as created (shown in Genesis 1) was a perfect, physical specimen but still incomplete in terms of God's overall purpose. That purpose requires man to make choices, particularly about things regarding his nature and his conduct. The major difference between man and animals is that man is not a creature of instinct but of mind. Man can explore, observe, collect facts, analyze, deduce, and understand, and from this, he makes choices. It is from this process that character is formed for good or bad. The question is in what or whose image is he being formed? Is his image of character after the image of God or of this world? God requires each human being to answer this question. He does not give us the option of deciding what is right and wrong, but He compels us to make choices, and it is in the making of choices that our character is established. John W. Ritenbaugh >From We Shall Be God! (Part 1) =========================================== Morning and Evening Evening ... Ecclesiastes 1:14 Behold, all is vanity. Nothing can satisfy the entire man but the Lord's love and the Lord's own self. Saints have tried to anchor in other roadsteads, but they have been driven out of such fatal refuges. Solomon, the wisest of men, was permitted to make experiments for us all, and to do for us what we must not dare to do for ourselves. Here is his testimony in his own words: "So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What! the whole of it vanity? O favoured monarch, is there nothing in all thy wealth? Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to the sea? Nothing in Palmyra's glorious palaces? Nothing in the house of the forest of Lebanon? In all thy music and dancing, and wine and luxury, is there nothing? "Nothing," he says, "but weariness of spirit." This was his verdict when he had trodden the whole round of pleasure. To embrace our Lord Jesus, to dwell in His love, and be fully assured of union with Him-this is all in all. Dear reader, you need not try other forms of life in order to see whether they are better than the Christian's: if you roam the world around, you will see no sights like a sight of the Saviour's face; if you could have all the comforts of life, if you lost your Saviour, you would be wretched; but if you win Christ, then should you rot in a dungeon, you would find it a paradise; should you live in obscurity, or die with famine, you will yet be satisfied with favour and full of the goodness of the Lord. Revelation 3:17 (17) Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: How close this is in principle to what the Pharisee says in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican ( Luke 18:9-14)! Oblivious to his spiritual poverty, the Pharisee chooses to compare himself to humans he can see rather than the holy God to whom he supposedly prays in faith. Notice also his conceit in listing his wonderful works of tithing and fasting! Though the Laodicean is indifferent, lackadaisical, and inconsistent in his devotion to God, his ignorance of his spiritual condition reveals a fundamental flaw that undergirds his lukewarm condition and paralyzes his spiritual life. The Laodicean says he is rich, but Christ's revelation shatters that delusion. He completely misreads his spiritual condition! He thinks he is already complete, thus he is indifferent to growing and changing. So great is his conceit that it blinds him into saying he needs nothing! This self-deception results in inconsistency in prayer and Bible Study and nonchalance in overcoming. Why do those exercises when he has no need? His relationship to Jesus Christ is distant and insipid. Would we want to be married to a person who could take us or leave us depending upon his momentary mood? No wonder Christ reacts so severely! The Laodicean's self-perceived "wealth" is a barrier to any meaningful relationship with Him ( Proverbs 18:11). A Laodicean is poor-really and truly poor-yet all the while thinking himself to be rich. He is unwilling to jettison anything, let alone everything in a whole-hearted search for God. Undoubtedly, he has knowledge about God and thinks this is the true religion, but it is plain that he does not know God. If he did, he would not be so blind to his poverty because he could compare himself to God's holiness, and his shortcomings would be exposed. He is intelligent, but he mistakes it for true wisdom. Christ may even have given him gifts for ministering to the church in some way, but he mistakenly judges them as grace toward salvation. He is blind yet has the light of God's truth in him-remember, this is written to converted people-but the light is turning to darkness. How great that darkness must be! To be wretched describes life when everything one owns has been destroyed or plundered by war. Here it describes the Laodicean's spiritual destitution and pitiableness before God. He is being devastated in the spiritual war against Satan, even though to all outward appearances he may look well-clothed, well-fed, and vigorous in carrying out his daily, secular responsibilities. How careful Christians must be in this time when the world and Satan are pressing their distractions upon us as never before! We cannot allow ourselves to be deluded into negligently or carelessly cheating ourselves out of so great salvation ( Hebrews 2:1-3). John W. Ritenbaugh >From The Beatitudes, Part Two: Poor in Spirit
