Accepting and Clinging to Forgiveness

Matthew 1:21

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Mary, a young woman, probably around 14-16 years old, becomes pregnant without ever having sex. She had been visited by an angel of God (Luke 1:26-38) telling her that she would be the mother of God incarnate (God in flesh). She was told that she would serve a great purpose for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom. She was destined by God to be the mother of His Son, the savior of the world. However I will address this in more detail in Luke. I want to focus on the second half of this passage stating that He (Jesus) would save His people from their sins. Immediately as I read this, I asked myself, “have I completely accepted this freedom from my sin? Have I turned from it and given it all over to Him and taken that passion that I had for sin and turned it into passion for Him? Have I given it up?” I think that these questions need to be asked in our lives frequently, especially for our generation. Our world raises us up to be impulsive, passionate, and ill-informed people. We give into our desires the second that they arise often. We get hungry and immediately search for a fast food joint. We want something and we seek how we can get it and the faster the better. We have the ability to find any information we want, but don’t access hardly any of it. Our greatest master has become our misplaced passion. We have a desire for Facebook, for food, for drink, for meaning, for acceptance, for ignorance of who we are at times, for love, for intimacy, for money, for maintaining a busy lifestyle. However, most of these are not inherently wrong. Facebook can be a great tool for Christians to spread the word of God and to be representatives of Him, however when we take time away from devotions and prayer in order to check our statuses and Facebook stalk people is when it becomes an idol. Nothing is wrong with being physically hungry, nor is there anything wrong with eating, but do we do it for God’s glory first of all, and has our hunger for physical food brought us more pain than our spiritual hunger that we continually ignore? We seek meaning, but where better to find meaning than the One who made us with a purpose? Why would a pencil ask another item that has no idea what it is, what the pencil’s purpose is? We do the same thing. We seek meaning from people that often don’t even know their own meaning in life. God created us with a purpose that we are to live out, but do we are we willing to give ourselves up in order to find it in Him? The list for these things goes on, but the purpose of it all is to say “what do you live for more, God or anyone or anything else?” If you live for God, you will cling to the freedom from sin because you will be freed from sin. I could not imagine what God’s reaction to people will be that rejected Him but I know He will be frank with them. I can picture that He will look at them in the eyes and say that He gave His beloved son for them, but to them, that was not good enough and now they should depart from Him.  That would be devastating to hear. I pray no one reading this hears that in the final day. I pray that none of us hear that we did not seek to embrace the forgiveness that God made avail to us because we were unwilling to give up our sin. A lightbulb cannot be partly darkness and partly lit (yes, I know there are dimmers, but a basic switch is my reference here) it is either lit or not. Which are you? We are called to be a light on a hill, demonstrating God and His love to the world (Matt 6:14). It starts with embracing His forgiveness.

May we take off our clothes of sinfulness and evil and heinous acts towards God and replace them with His grace each and every day. May we take our plans and wills and lay them aside for His. May we be His people.

-Ryan

Core Examination

Psalms 53:2-3

God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.

They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.

I read this passage today and my heart turned. I was distraught by the words that haunted my sight. The thought invaded my mind, is this true today or could God say this today? Though the world is corrupt and man is defiled, I wondered what God thinks of us. Is He pleased with our lives or is He disappointed? Do we strive to know Him a fraction of how well He knows us or are we content with a distant relationship at best? For those who are doing well in their walks and getting to know God in a real and passionate relationship, good job. If it is real, and I pray it is, then you are making your King proud because, though sin disappoints God greatly and breaks His heart, you are seeking Him and getting to know Him and that blesses His soul as it blesses yours. To you I say, keep up the work, cling to Him and become the man/woman He desires you to be. To others, is God proud of how you live? Do you put Him first? I will be the first to say that it’s tough. Life throws everything imaginable in your way so that God is not first in your life. Do you cling to the bait or to God? Can the last half of this verse be said about you? If you are abiding in Christ, your soul has been redeemed and you are pure in His sight. However, to abide in Christ, you must constantly and consistently be in His word and before His throne, you must love Him, you must put Him first in your life and live as He calls you to. This is no small calling. This is no calling to mediocrity. This is a radical calling for the Christian. There is no mediocre Christian. May we be a people that seek after God first and foremost with no limits and no hinderances, and seek to understanding from His word. May we abide in Christ and experience Him as we ought. May we live the John 15, Luke 14:25-33, 1 Cor 10:31, Deut 6:5, Exodus 20 (just to name a few) lifestyle to please our Lord. 

Theodoulos (servant of God)

-Ryan

Total Worship

Revelation 22:9b

Worship God

While reading this chapter, the closing passages of the Bible, these two words caught my eye more than anything else. One of the last messages of the Bible is not some grandiose theological theory. It is our mission statement. Do we worship God? Does our life bring Him glory in ALL the areas of our life? Or are we withholding parts of our life from God’s penetrating light? It is easy to say “I am giving God so much of my life, I can keep some for myself,” but God calls us to give Him all of it. He does not call us to give Him most of us, He calls us to give all of us like He gave Himself for us. Worship is a lifestyle, not solely a song. Worship is seeking to please God by coming before His throne, by following Him full-heartedly. Do we worship God or is our worship found elsewhere? Does something come before God in our life? Does our love or search for something come close to our love and search for God? Do we seek God with all of our life? It is what we are called to do. Nothing can be hidden from God. There can not be our own little corner of sin and hell in heaven and we cannot continue to seek that sin until we are in heaven without changing or doing our best to change. If we begin to refuse to desire to change from our sin, we are placing that sin between us and God, whether we want to admit to it or not. Do we truly worship God? 

Worship is a consuming lifestyle that must invade every aspect of our life. Live it out from the core of who you are. Worship is an essential concept and practice in the life of a Christian.

-Ryan

PS- This concludes our study through the New Testament. However, I plan on going back through it again soon to have fresh devotions. Now onto the Old testament and revisiting the gospels.

Change Your Clothes

Revelation 19:7-8

Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—

We are to bring God glory through our life. From our actions to our words to our thoughts, it all should bring Him glory. Though this task is impossible because we will fail, we will sin, we will love our fleshly desires, we have to strive to bring Him as much glory as possible. Not out of a requirement, but from desire. As we walk with Him, we become more like Him and fall more in love with Him. As this happens, we desire to please Him more and more. From this desire comes our passion and calling to bring Him glory. But, this cannot become confused with trying to earn salvation. It is a very fine line between serving God out of love and serving God to earn salvation as compensation. 

The last half of this verse stimulated my thoughts the most. “and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— Family, have we made ourselves ready for His return? If we truly know God, He gives us new, clean clothes instead of the heinous, torn up, shattered, and repugnant clothes that were our past, our sins, our rebellious acts of hatred towards God, our acts of self gratification and self exaltation. Have we put these new clothes on though? Have we put purity as our clothing? Have we grown closer to our King and Lover? Have we removed our old desires, old way of thought, old actions, etc and replaced it with God and His calling on our life? However, it is NECESSARY to take off the old

I pray that we take off the old and put on the new.

-Ryan

Lifelong Battle/Sacred Marriage

Revelation 16:14

For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

This life is a battle. The first question is, which side will you be on? You will be fighting for your god(God). Will it be for the God of the Universe, the Creator, or will it be for yourself and your flesh or whatever other god it may be? The second question is, will you be ready? As Christians, we are called to be workers that study to ourselves approved (worthy) (2 Timothy 2:15). How much time do we spend studying? How much time do we spend getting orders from our King? Seeking His guidance and strength? The effects of not spending time with God is evident. When you separate yourself from Him, you will draw closer to sin, closer to idolatry, closer to rebellion, closer to bondage. We truly separate ourselves from our God. We move away, not Him. So often we find ourselves or others in dark places, places of brokeness, places of shame, places of loneliness, often times left to shout out to God “where are you,” feeling that God has left them. The thing is, many times we end up in those spots because we have walked away. We have drifted off, most likely gradually, but we walked away from God and begin to feel the repercussions of it and feel his absence and fall into sin. Though this is a majority of the situations, there are times like Job experienced, times that you haven’t walked away, but you need to be tried, you need to be refined, you need to be purified by God. It is a test of your love for Him, not His love for you. His love never changes, but He wants proof that yours is firm, that whether good or bad, you will love Him and seek Him. The Christian life is echoed throughout society. Marriage itself is a direct echo of the Christian’s commitment to God and visa versa. To love Him regardless of situations, to spend time with Him, to seek to please Him. The problem is, we fail miserably at this in life. We seek other pleasures. We say that His satisfaction is not enough for us and that we need sin to find pleasure, we need to worry to succeed... The list goes on and on. We have been unfaithful in this marriage to God, He never has been unfaithful, He is always there. But family, I raise this because often we think of our relationship with God as a friendship. It’s a marriage. It is a lifelong commitment. It is a promise to spend time with Him and to grow with Him everyday. We are to ABIDE in God. We are to become imitators of Him. We are to echo His nature. We are to be holy as He is holy (I Peter 1:16). 

Which side do we choose? 

And are we faithful to our eternal commitment with God? May we strive to do our best at it.

-Ryan

Through God's Eyes

Revelation 15:4a

Who will not fear, O Lord,

and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

The Fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom... (Proverbs 1:7)... Do we fear God? 

This question that so often is answer hastily by us.. In deep thought about this question, may His light expose our lives as they truly are.

God is perfect, meaning He has no fault in Him. By nature God cannot commune with imperfection. We have been tainted because we have rebelled against Him. We are unholy due to sin. Through Christ’s sacrifice we who are chosen by God and chose Him are redeemed and have been given Christ’s holiness upon our lives, however, the question remains, do we fear God? Fearing God is not to be scared to him like a monster, but to be afraid to disappoint Him because we want to make Him proud. We should view sin in a similar manner as He does. Sin is repugnant in His eyes, yet so often it is desirable in ours. As a sign of walking with God and growing in a relationship with Him, we become more like Him, if this is the case, our perspective on sin needs to change. We need to be disgusted by the sin in our life, and we must strive to repel it from our lives. If we truly fear God, we will keep His commandments and live as we would desire. We are indebted to Him, may we live daily as if we are gladly slaves of the King. Furthermore, may we bring Him the glory from our lives in every manner. For we do nothing on our own, but we can do all things through Christ who is our strength (Phil 4:13)... Family, God’s glory is not found in our sin, but our victories. May we continue, and for some begin, to fight the sin in our life for our King and conquer in His name, out of love for Him. 

May we see with God's eyes and not our own

-Ryan

Endure

Revelation 14:12

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. 

Paul told Christians many times to “run the race set before them.” He told us to run hard and finish strong. Here in Revelation, we are reminded to finish. We are reminded to persevere. We are reminded of what our mission is: to run this race, to seek God and abide in Him and know Him intimately, and to finish this life serving our King. We are told to endure. We are to give it our all. We are to fight our hardest, relying on the strength of God to get us through. Do we cave under pressure or do we fight to stand and stand strong for our King? We are to run hard and to finish. Running hard does us no good if we don’t finish. We need to rely upon God as he is our strength and we truly “can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13).” Family, I really pray that we all fight to grow in our walks. Our walks with God can be compared to running up an escalator, backwards. If you lower the effort being put into achieving the goal, progress is lost and you regress, however if you push harder and run faster you will eventually reach the goal. When faced with a challenge, we are to push harder and run faster, having God guide us and provide us with the strength needed to get through this race. 

Depend on Him for strength, your own will never allow you to finish victorious.

-Ryan

In regards to chapters 6-13 of Revelation, I encourage reading those chapters and truly diving into them. I really was blown away at the amazing display of power that God demonstrates. It can be so easy to forget that God has so much power and even everything in this chapters is just a fraction of His power. Check the chapters out and be amazed at the power of our King!

Our Heart Song To God

Revelation 5:13

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come....” (Revelation 4:8b, repeated)

Is this our heart’s song to God? Do we desire to praise Him because HE IS HOLY? Because He is LORD? Because He is MIGHTY? Because He is ETERNAL? Because He is GOD? May we dwell upon this verse and see the levity of it. This verse can be restated as such, “So holy is God. Holy beyond comprehension. Holy describes Him, because He is perfectly and completely Holy. When I dwell upon the thought of His holiness, I cannot begin to fathom it. I tremor with remorse because I know how disgusting and unholy I am. However, great is the Holy One who REDEEMED me and made me as He is, holy. He is the beginning of all. He made us. He is the Creator and never leaves. He is near to me and knows everything about me, past, present and future. He holds me in His hands, ALWAYS.”

We are told in Scripture that on a day every tongue will confess and every knee will bow because God is the Lord over all Creation. Since that day is coming, I pray that we sing this song to Him every day and we confess Him every day starting now. May we not wait to sing this song when it is too late. May we live lives that reflect this now. May our lives revolve around God and His precepts. May we abide in Him. May we seek Him above all else. May we give our all for Him our of crazy love, because He loved us with CRAZIER love. May our lives give Him all the glory and all of the honor and all of the might in us. May we sing praises to His name. May we love Him with all of our hearts. This life is the training ground for eternity. If we sing praises to God now, we will sing them in eternity. However, if we praise ourselves or sin, we will praise sin for all eternity with a hardened heart towards God and a deep seeded hatred towards Him and all that is good. We truly do reap what we sow.

Blessings,

-Ryan

Conquering

Revelation 3:5

The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 

A theme that is very distinct in this chapter was conquering and this is one instance of its recurrence. To conquer is defined by dictionary.com as “to gain, win, or obtain by effort, personal appeal, etc.; to overcome by force; subdue; or to win in war.” I like to define conquer as “to see out a mission to its entirety with success.” Our mission as followers of Christ is 1) to love Him above all else (Matthew 22:37-38) 2) Love others above ourselves as Christ loved them (Matthew 22:39) and 3) to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) and 4) to do this throughout our life. This is the job of a Christian. Do we conquer these tasks? If not (which none of us completely conquer these tasks), then how can we improve on them and will we do them for the glory of our King? To conquer in its truest sense is not to win one battle or overcome an obstacle, it is to finish the war being victorious. Though we may stumble in our walks and make mistakes, God looks toward our victory and desires to see us striving for improvement so that we can find victory. Though we have said a prayer to give our lives to God, this is not victory, victory is found in conquering and conquering in the Christian is found by dying to oneself daily (Luke 14:25-33) and seeking the Lord above all else and knowing Him and making Him known. 

Family, this is war, will we conquer or be conquered? It’s one or the other, there is no in between. May we not let any aspect of our life slip through without being claimed for the Lord. 

May the Lord be proud of us as conquerors in His name, children of the most High God.

-Ryan

First Love

Revelation 2:4

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

A life desires God more and more, will gain Him more. One that desires Him less and less is getting exactly what they seek.

For many Christians, when they first enter into the lifelong walk with Christ, they have such a passion and zeal for Him. However, as time goes on we begin to lose that love and passion. We desire Him less and that is exactly what we are getting. Jesus is calling many of us out. Family, it is so easy to lose sight of our first love. In a relationship  that takes place over many years between two people, there is an initial rush of emotion, they long for each other’s company, they love everything about each other and they can’t wait to hear each other’s voice, etc. But as time passes, they don’t have that same passion for each other. We have all seen or experienced relationships like this. May we not let this type of attitude invade our relationship with God. His love is all we need family. He is all we need. Yet we find ourselves living for everything else many times. God is our second, third, fourth love. Why not our first? Why, when we are honest with ourselves, do we find that other things and people are contending for the position of most importance in our lives? God should have no competition for that position! In comparison to our love for Him, it should seem that we hate everyone and everything else and even ourselves, as it talks about in Luke 14:25-33. Do we love God like this? If not, why? In the passage in Luke, Jesus CLEARLY states that in order to be a disciple of Him, we must count the costs of following Him, which are to love Him above ALL else and to replace us with Him by carrying our cross daily for Him, allowing no humiliation, personal plans, personal will, or anything else to obstruct our relationship to Him. Basically we must give Him our life and make Him first in our life in order to follow Him. Family, may we not forsake our first love, but may we come back to Him and His open arms and carry on with Him being faithful until death (Revelation 2:26), bringing Him pleasure in us.

To our first true love we must return. To God we must run back to. To the cross we must embrace persistently.

-Ryan