From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening...
Hosea 5:7
They have dealt treacherously against the Lord.
Believer, here is a sorrowful truth! Thou art the beloved of the Lord,
redeemed by blood, called by grace, preserved in Christ Jesus, accepted in the
Beloved, on thy way to heaven, and yet, "thou hast dealt treacherously" with
God, thy best friend; treacherously with Jesus, whose thou art; treacherously
with the Holy Spirit, by whom thou hast been quickened unto life eternal! How
treacherous you have been in the matter of vows and promises. Do you remember
the love of your espousals, that happy time-the springtide of your spiritual
life? Oh, how closely did you cling to your Master then! saying, "He shall
never charge me with indifference; my feet shall never grow slow in the way of
His service; I will not suffer my heart to wander after other loves; in Him is
every store of sweetness ineffable. I give all up for my Lord Jesus' sake." Has
it been so? Alas! if conscience speak, it will say, "He who promised so well
has performed most ill. Prayer has oftentimes been slurred-it has been short,
but not sweet; brief, but not fervent. Communion with Christ has been
forgotten. Instead of a heavenly mind, there have been carnal cares, worldly
vanities and thoughts of evil. Instead of service, there has been disobedience;
instead of fervency, lukewarmness; instead of patience, petulance; instead of
faith, confidence in an arm of flesh; and as a soldier of the cross there has
been cowardice, disobedience, and desertion, to a very shameful degree." "Thou
hast dealt treacherously." Treachery to Jesus! what words shall be used in
denouncing it? Words little avail: let our penitent thoughts execrate the sin
which is so surely in us. Treacherous to Thy wounds, O Jesus! Forgive us, and
let us not sin again! How shameful to be treacherous to Him who never forgets
us, but who this day stands with our names engraven on His breastplate before
the eternal throne.
Ephesians 1:13-14
(13) In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed
with that holy Spirit of promise, (14) Which is the earnest of our inheritance
until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
This chapter extols the uniqueness of the church, which Paul refers to as
"the purchased possession." Israel became God's personal possession through the
destruction of Egypt, and more importantly, with the killing of Egypt's
firstborn as the price for Israel's liberty. God "purchased" Israel and its
liberties by this means.
What we see taking form is a separate and unique people. Even though all
mankind owes its existence to God as their Creator, Israel and the church are
both separate and unique because they belong to God in a way other people and
nations do not. Amos 3:2 declares, "You only have I known of all the families
of the earth." God purchased these people at awesome cost and thus came into
possession of them.
When Israel became His property, it gave them certain liberties. So it is
with us, but we receive more besides. Among other things regarding the
uniqueness of the church, Paul explains that its members have been set apart
(redeemed and freed from the rest of mankind and its ways) and sealed through
the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The term sealed is important because it embraces, not only the sense of
ownership, but also security and guarantee. Individual seals were unique, used
on documents to identify the sender and to render the content secure from
prying eyes and theft, and so they were a guarantee that the contents would
reach the intended destination.
God's children may look no different on the outside, but they have been
given something inside, something spiritual, that makes them different from
others and special to God. They are different only because of something God has
done, which also makes them His personal, treasured possession.
John 1:12-13 declares, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the
right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name: who
were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God." That "something" is the right or power (KJV) to believe the Word
of God, which begets us and imparts to us the knowledge of God and His purpose,
faith, the fear of God, the love of God, and so much more.
Billions of people have access to the Bible. They read it and may even
attend church and call themselves Christian, but they then ignore and disobey
huge amounts of it, thus not living by every Word of God. This is actual
evidence that those who are part of God's special treasure do indeed possess
something that sets them apart and motivates them to obey more completely.
Deuteronomy 7:6 begins a section that reveals one of the major reasons
why God has done this. "For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the
LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure
above all the peoples on the face of the earth." Segullah appears again as
"special treasure," but along with segullah is another, more familiar term that
identifies being a special treasure as an aspect of a larger subject: the
blessings and responsibilities of holiness.
Holy literally means "set apart." Being a special treasure has set us
apart from other people. Others, without this advantage, are not set apart.
When this principle from the Old Testament is combined with Ephesians 1:13-14,
we can understand that the blessing of having the Spirit of God makes us
special, different, and holy ( Romans 8:9).
This occurs because, in God's self-revelation, His Spirit imparts faith
and the love of God beyond what the natural mind is capable. It is becoming
clear that being blessed as a special, holy people imposes responsibilities on
us that we are required—indeed commanded—to meet. The standards within this
relationship are high, requiring gifts and growth to meet them.
John W. Ritenbaugh
From A Priceless Gift
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daily devotional
Evening...
Isaiah 54:12
I will make thy windows of agates.
The church is most instructively symbolized by a building erected by heavenly
power, and designed by divine skill. Such a spiritual house must not be dark,
for the Israelites had light in their dwellings; there must therefore be
windows to let the light in and to allow the inhabitants to gaze abroad. These
windows are precious as agates: the ways in which the church beholds her Lord
and heaven, and spiritual truth in general, are to be had in the highest
esteem. Agates are not the most transparent of gems, they are but semi-pellucid
at the best:
"Our knowledge of that life is small,
Our eye of faith is dim."
Faith is one of these precious agate windows, but alas! it is often so misty
and beclouded, that we see but darkly, and mistake much that we do see. Yet if
we cannot gaze through windows of diamonds and know even as we are known, it is
a glorious thing to behold the altogether lovely One, even though the glass be
hazy as the agate. Experience is another of these dim but precious windows,
yielding to us a subdued religious light, in which we see the sufferings of the
Man of Sorrows, through our own afflictions. Our weak eyes could not endure
windows of transparent glass to let in the Master's glory, but when they are
dimmed with weeping, the beams of the Sun of Righteousness are tempered, and
shine through the windows of agate with a soft radiance inexpressibly soothing
to tempted souls. Sanctification, as it conforms us to our Lord, is another
agate window. Only as we become heavenly can we comprehend heavenly things. The
pure in heart see a pure God. Those who are like Jesus see Him as He is.
Because we are so little like Him, the window is but agate; because we are
somewhat like Him, it is agate. We thank God for what we have, and long for
more. When shall we see God and Jesus, and heaven and truth, face to face?
1 Corinthians 5:7-8
(7) Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye
are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: (8)
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven
of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Paul plainly instructs that the purpose of keeping the Days of Unleavened
Bread is to remind us of our need to remove sin from our lives. Because of the
serious sins that a Corinthian member had committed, and the congregation's
general acceptance of this situation, Paul advises them to use the Days of
Unleavened Bread to "purge out the old leaven." They should examine their
attitudes and put these sins out of their lives and out of the congregation. He
reminds them that the Passover is a memorial of the death of Christ, who died
for us that we may receive forgiveness of sins. They "truly are unleavened," he
says, in the sense that they had repented and been justified through faith in
the sacrifice of Christ. However, since they had allowed leaven to return into
their lives, they needed to get rid of it.
This is the heart of why we are still required to put leaven out of our
homes. Leaven represents sin, and deleavening our homes symbolizes purging sin
from our lives. However, cleansing our lives of sin is a lifetime process that
will not be completely fulfilled until we are resurrected and transformed into
spirit. As long as we are still flesh and blood, we will never be absolutely
perfect—we will never free ourselves completely and totally of sin. This
constant struggle to overcome human nature and put on God's nature is called
sanctification. Nevertheless, we must continually strive to conform to the
image of Jesus Christ, that is, to be a truly perfect human being ( Philippians
3:12-14).
God wants us to observe the Days of Unleavened Bread year after year to
remind us that we are not perfect and that our lives are a constant struggle
against sin. When we deleaven our homes, we find that, no matter how hard we
try, we cannot find every tiny crumb that may be imbedded in carpet or hidden
behind an appliance. This illustrates how deceitful sin is and teaches us that
we must constantly examine ourselves to purge it out of our lives. Removing sin
is hard work! The Days of Unleavened Bread remind us annually of this constant
warfare that all Christians must wage throughout their lives.
Why then must we remove leaven from our homes but need not be
circumcised? The answer is that physical circumcision no longer has a purpose
under the New Covenant. Its symbolism is fulfilled in the process of
repentance, baptism, and receipt of the Holy Spirit. However, the object lesson
of deleavening our homes still has great meaning and purpose for us. The
symbolism of putting sin out of our lives will not be completely fulfilled
until we are born into the Kingdom of God and become like Him who cannot sin (
I John 3:9).
Earl L. Henn (1934-1997)
From Why We Must Put Out Leaven
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