Melting Wax...

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Today’s Devotional Thought: Melting Wax...

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8

God wants real authenticity from us. He didn’t pay for us with the blood and body of Jesus for just the appearance of authenticity. He payed the price for the real you, the authentic you. So, Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Blessed are those who are not pretending to be more than they really are or something they’re not. There’s happiness in that. 

And the word pure here—it’s the idea of “undivided.” It is authentic. It is a sincere heart. My favorite description of what it means to be pure in heart is from Soren Kirkegaaurd who said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” What that means, in essence, is that we don’t have a divided loyalty. Jesus once said, “a house divided upon itself cannot stand.” (Mark 3:25) Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24).

An impure heart is one divided in its loyalties. The Bible has another word for that. It is hypocrisy, “Hypocrite” comes from a Greek word used in the theater to describe being of two faces, or acting. It is pretending to be something or someone you’re not. So, the opposite of being pure in heart is hypocrisy.

Matthew records these words of Jesus within a sermon Jesus preaches at the beginning of his ministry called, “The Sermon on the Mount.” At the end of Jesus’ ministry Matthew records Jesus’ last sermon. It is called, “The Sermon of the Seven Woes.” So, in Matthew 5 Jesus starts his ministry with, “Blessed is the one...” Then he ends his ministry with, “Woe to you hypocrite.” And so we find that Jesus begins and he ends his ministry with this truth: blessed are the sincere, but woe to you who are faking it.

In ancient Rome, sculpting was a popular profession. There were a lot of sculptors because there was a big demand in the marketplace. All kinds of false gods were sculpted and then sold. And because there was so much demand, there were a lot of sculptors who really weren’t very good sculptors. I mean, they were inferior craftsman. They would build these sculptures because they wanted to make a quick buck, but it wasn’t a great product. So the legitimate sculptors started to mark their statues with these words: "Sine cera." This is where we get our word "sincere" from. And the word "sine cera" literally means, “without wax.” The reason is due to the fact that the inferior sculptors would put wax in the cracks and the pieces that didn’t quite get molded right. They would fill those in with wax. They were good at faking it so if you’re just looking at the sculpture, on the outside, it looks fine; it looks perfectly acceptable. But a lot of it is actually wax. And so those who were pure sculptors, those who were genuine sculptures, they would say "sine cera," or “without wax.” They would mark it that way. Then they would set their sculptures out in the sun, and the sun would expose whether or not there was wax. The sun would melt the wax. So it was shown and proven to be pure.

The light that can melt our wax off is the suffering Christ who died for our sins. He can produce in us a pure heart if our greatest desire is to seek him with all our heart. Then we will discover that there is blessing (happiness, joy) in being real and sincerely seeking after Him.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, melt our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh that are on fire for you. Unify our hearts with the single purpose of pursuing your Son Jesus. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” (Psalm 51:10-12). In Jesus name, amen.

[Excerpt taken from "The End of Me" message series week three: authentic to be accepted. CLICK HERE to listen to full message]

You are of infinite worth...

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Today's Devotional Thought:

 Psalm 8:3-4, "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?"

 1 Peter 1:18-19, "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect."

Does ninety dollars seem like a lot of money? A new reading tablet or a piece of home fitness equipment might be a steal at that price. On some days, ninety dollars can buy you a day at Disney World. Or, it may be a night out for you and your family.

Or ninety dollars could be the value of your entire life. According to SumAll.org the average worldwide cost of a trafficked human is just ninety dollars. That's what this world values you at—ninety dollars. Does it make you feel a bit cheap?

When the Psalmist looked towards the heaven, in a day and age when light pollution was next to nil and the night sky was brilliantly bathed in celestial glory, and he realized that God had created all that just so we might exist, he was dumbfounded by the value God places on each and every person. His response was, "What is man that God should care for him so?" In other words, "Hasn't God overpaid?"

God must not think so. God upped the ante. He sent his Son. Jesus came to free us. He once said, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:34-36). Every person is a slave for we all have sinned and fall short of God's glory (Romans 3:23) and sin has enslaved us. Jesus bought us (to "redeem" is to buy back for a price) out of slavery. The price? Everything. A value greater than all and everything. For God paid for us with Himself.

So, what are you worth? On some level we decide. It's a matter of to whom you will give yourself to. You choose whether you will give yourself to the world or God. As James says, "You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God" (James 4:4). It's either or. You can have only one master. Give yourself to the world and prove yourself cheap, virtually worthless. Give yourself to God and prove yourself of infinite worth, priceless. Let the highest bidder win.

 Prayer: Holy Father, we can not begin to fathom what You see in us. We cannot begin to comprehend Your love. But if You're willing to pay such a high price You deserve to get what You paid for. You deserve all of us and nothing less. Help us to give all that we are for all that You gave. We love You. In Jesus name, amen.

A Story of Grace...

Romans 5:6-8 tells us: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

One of the darkest moments of human history is the holocaust of WWII. Of the death camps that the Nazi’s used to eliminate various undesirable people Auschwitz was perhaps one of the worst. Prisoners at Auschwitz were given less food than needed to survive and even the strongest prisoners were on the brink of starvation and death.

In order to discourage escapes Auschwitz had a rule that if a man escaped ten men would be killed in retaliation. It was July of 1941 that a prisoner escaped. The commandant, Karl Fritsch, had all the men from that bunker turn out and line up outside. “The fugitive has not been found!” the commandant screamed. “You will all pay for this. Ten of you will be locked in the starvation bunker without food or water until they die.” The prisoners trembled in terror. A few days in this bunker without food and water, and a man's intestines dried up and his brain turned to fire.

The ten men were selected. When one prisoners name was called, Franciszek Gajowniczek, he could not help a cry of anguish, “My poor wife!” he sobbed. “My poor children! What will they do?” To everyone’s astonishment another man who had not been selected to die stepped out of line and approached the commandant, took of his cap, and spoke, “Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children and I have none.”

Everyone held their breath. There was no telling what the commandant would do. To everyone’s surprise the commandant agreed and took Maximilian Kolbe, a Christian, to replace Gasanovocheck. The ten men were marched to the starvation bunker to die an agonizingly slow and painful death.

Gasanovocheck later recalled:

"I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me - a stranger. Is this some dream?

I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this."

Gasanovocheck lived to be 95 years old. Every year of the 53 years that Kolbe’s sacrifice gave him he returned to Auschwitz to honor the sacrifice that was made to allow him to live.

Hearing this story I cannot help but to relate. Each one of us stood condemned before the God of the universe. Romans tells us that the wages of sin is death and for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all stood condemned. If we have put our faith in Jesus Christ then when God calls our name to be judged Jesus steps forward and stands in our place having already taken our punishment. Dying a horrible death at calvary Christ died for us. We do not deserve this. We are unworthy. We are powerless. That is exactly why it is grace, a free gift of life.

PRAYER: Father, we do not deserve your mercy or grace but how desperate we are for it. We stood condemned but you saved us from your wrath and so we praise You before all men. Thank you for the life you have given us. Give us the courage and strength to return that life to You lived to the full in Jesus Christ. In HIs name--Amen.

BELIEVE: week thirty: Humility

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” (Philippians 4:5)

We all know that the person who has a strong self-esteem and feeds their ego through self-promotion, often at the expense of others, is not the poster child for biblical humility. However, biblical humility also isn’t demonstrated through the person who has a low self-esteem, acts humble and shy, and lacks confidence, allowing people to walk all over them. That’s humiliation.

Truly humble people have a strong self-esteem stemming from knowing who they are in Christ. A firm grasp of your eternal position as a child of God gives you confidence that you have nothing to lose. Knowing that your position is not up for grabs affords you the opportunity to put the needs of others above your own.

In Philippians 2:8 Paul cites Jesus as the poster child for humility: “being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death.” Jesus, with a strong sense of who he was, put your needs above his own and suffered so that you could gain a relationship with God. If you want to be like Jesus, take on his brand of humility.

“I choose to esteem others above myself.”

[Excerpt from Believe: 31-Day Devotional by Randy & Roxanne Frazee, pgs. 63-64.]

BELIEVE: week twenty-nine: Gentleness

“Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” (Philippians 4:5)

When you study the virtue of gentleness throughout the Bible, it carries three practical ideas:

• Thoughtfulness—Think before you speak.
• Consideration—Put yourself in other people’s shoes, and give them room to make mistakes.
• Calmness—Don’t raise your voice or tense up your facial muscles.

Because we belong to Christ, these qualities should be evident to everyone who comes in contact with us. But why does Paul throw in the next sentence? “The Lord is near.”

This can mean one of two things. One, the Lord’s return to earth is near. When Christ returns we don’t want to be found as harsh, arrogant, uptight, and loud. Two, it could simply mean that the Lord’s presence is near us right now. He is watching everything we are doing all the time.

Bottom line, in all of your encounters with people, imagine Jesus in the room with you, because he is in you, and he might actually show up face-to-face in front of you today. Act accordingly.

“I am thoughtful, considerate, and calm in my dealings with others.”

[Excerpt from Believe: 31-Day Devotional by Randy & Roxanne Frazee, pgs. 61-62.]