Pleasing God Even In Suffering

How I behave when I suffer is a testimony.

1 Peter 2:18-21  You who are slaves must accept the authority of your masters with all respect. Do what they tell you--not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are cruel.   

19  For God is pleased with you when you do what you know is right and patiently endure unfair treatment.  20  Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong. But if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you.   

21  For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in His steps.

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The frequent mention of slaves in the New Testament shows that many of the first Christians must have been slaves. There are a lot of guidelines for how a slave should behave in the writing to the early church. (Ephesians 6:5-7)

What a strange state for a believer, to learn from Jesus and from the apostles that all men are created equal and yet many of them are living as slaves, they must have had a difficult time accepting the position that they were in. Yet they were told to respect the authority that they were under when they came to Christ, their lives should follow Jesus example and show love, patience and grace so that they would be a good witness.

What pleases God? Most of us know the answer, it is to do what is right, but it doesn't mean to do right only if the circumstances are good. We are told to do what is right even when we are not treated well, it doesn't get you off the hook, you can't stop living by God's standards just because of pain and trials.

You suffer? God blesses.

Matthew 5:10-12  God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God. 10 God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.  11  "God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are My followers.  12  Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.

Trouble is going to come your way even if you are living for God and even if you are working for peace. Jesus told us that God blesses those that work at being peaceful but he also warned us that we will have trouble in this world. (John 16:33)

Jesus didn't tell us to endure through suffering and whine and complain, he said that we should be happy about it, God's ways are so unnatural for us.

God promises blessings upon his children but we may not receive them until we arrive at out eternal home in heaven. Those blessings can be difficult to wait for but if we really take an honest look at our lives we will have to admit that living with God in control and going through hard times is a much better life than going through those difficult times without him.

I am called to do good, even if it means suffering, I need to do what God calls me to do. How I behave when the pressure is on is a testimony to the power of God in my life. (1 Peter 2:21)

Living With Honor

Honor and respect are not very popular in these days of entitlement and selfishness.

1 Peter 2:13-17  For the Lord's sake, respect all human authority, whether the king as head of state,  14  or the officials he has appointed. For the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and to honor those who do right.   

15  It is God's will that your honorable lives should silence those ignorant people who make foolish accusations against you.  16  For you are free, yet you are God's slaves, so don't use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.  17  Respect everyone, and love your Christian brothers and sisters. Fear God, and respect the king.

1 Samuel 2:30  "But I will honor those who honor Me, and I will despise those who think lightly of Me."

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Honor and respect are not very popular in these days of entitlement and selfishness, there are not very many people that are willing to deny themselves and live by a higher standard. There is a great need for authenticity and high moral vales in our country today.

It seems that the only time that honor is popular is when a con man is trying to benefit from lying about having a military award. The Supreme Court has even said that the right to free speech includes the right to lie about being a honored military vet.

Our government doesn't care so much about honor and valor but the Bible teaches us that we need to cooperate with God and value what he values, his agenda should be our agenda and we should be pleased to do his will. We should revere God and respect the standard that he has set for our daily lifestyle.

“The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training – sacrifice. In battle, and, in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No physical courage and no greater strength can take the place of the divine help which alone can sustain him.”  - General Douglas MacArthur

God made the ultimate sacrifice and in doing so he has given us the highest honor that we could ever have. The cross should be a reminder of the greatest act of honor that has ever been done, God showed us how to sacrifice, he showed us how to stand up for truth, justice and purity.

Honoring God? Make it real!

Isaiah 29:13-14  And so the Lord says, "These people say they are Mine. They honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. And their worship of Me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.  14 Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites with amazing wonders. The wisdom of the wise will pass away, and the intelligence of the intelligent will disappear."

History is full of people that pretended to honor God and the consequences for their insincerity are very high. In the Bible the nation of Israel shows us over and over again what it looks like when a nation doesn't honor God and live by the standards that he has set. Their false teachers and immoral government leaders took the people away from God and into ruin.

God gave us his commandments, he gave us an organized society with leaders to govern us and he gave us the Holy Spirit to guide us so that we can be members of society that live orderly, respectful and quiet lives.

Honor in the Proverbs:

Proverbs 3:9  Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Proverbs 18:12  Haughtiness goes before destruction; humility precedes honor. Proverbs 20:3  Avoiding a fight is a mark of honor; only fools insist on quarreling. Proverbs 21:21  Whoever pursues righteousness and unfailing love will find life, righteousness, and honor. Proverbs 22:4  True humility and fear of the LORD lead to riches, honor, and long life. Proverbs 26:1  Honor is no more associated with fools than snow with summer or rain with harvest. Proverbs 29:23  Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor.

Humility, avoiding a fight, fear the Lord and pursuing righteousness are the characteristics of a man that God will honor. I want to be found faithful, to live with authenticity, to live without compromise and serve others so that my Savior will say "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

That is the highest honor possible!

Excuse Me, Coming Through

Just passing through on my way to glory.

1 Peter 2:11-12  Dear friends, I warn you as "temporary residents and foreigners" to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.  12  Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when He judges the world.

1 Peter 1:17  And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of Him during your time as "foreigners in the land."

Philippians 3:20  But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for Him to return as our Savior.

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Going home is something to look forward to with great excitement. It means that the work day is finished or a vacation is over and you get to relax. As good as going home is here on this planet it isn't anything like the home that we will go to some day in glory.

God's children know that Jesus went back to his home in heaven to prepare the place for us (John 14:2-3, Hebrews 11:16), what a glorious place that must be, as wonderful as our world is, it only took six days to create it so just think how amazing heaven will be after all this time that Jesus has been gone.

The best description of heaven is found in Revelation 21-22. It is a place without suffering, a place that won't have any tears (Isaiah 25:8, Revelation 7:17), a place without hospitals where all of the people that live there will have brand new bodies (2 Corinthians 5:1-8) and a place without graveyards or funerals. In heaven there won't be any sin, suffering, sorrow, or pain and we will never do anything to displease God.

Choose which kingdom you love

1 John 2:15-17  Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.  16  For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.  17  And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

This world has a lot of beauty and it has a lot of cool toys and good times but none of those things should be our true love. If I love this world and it's pleasures and begin to allow it's pleasures to rule my life instead of God then those worldly desires will start to change my thinking and I will start to look just like the people of this world instead of the people in the new world. The people that are citizens of the land that I am going to behave differently and I should look like them.

The Bible cautions us that the love for the world is in conflict with our love for God, they cannot coexist, it is a contradiction to say that I love the sinful pleasures of this world and that I love God and what he loves.

I need to love like God loves, the only thing that I am to love in this world is people, they are the only thing of this world that I can take to my new home in glory. I need to tell as many people as i can so that they can go to God's eternal home that he has made for me. (John 5:28-29, 2 Peter 3:10)

Privileges Of God's Children: Chosen

So unworthy yet God picked me.

1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light. 10 Once you had no identity as a people now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy now you have received God’s mercy.”

John 15:19 The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.

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Choosing teams for sports was a very humiliating experience for many people growing up. If you are in the first fifty percent of the class that was picked you were okay but if you were standing there for too long then it started to get embarrassing. As far back as the Old Testament God has had a chosen people, it is clear throughout the Bible that some are picked and some are not, it is a difficult concept for our little heads to understand.

There must have been thousands of people on earth but God chose Abraham, out of Abraham's two sons God chose Issac and out of Issac's two sons God chose Jacob, it had nothing to do with the individual that's just the way God wanted it to be. Even Paul said that he was the least likely person to be picked to be an apostle. (1 Corinthians 15:9)

It doesn't seem fair to us but just because we don't understand doesn't mean it is wrong. God is not to be measured by our understanding of what is just and fair. There are so many things that we do not understand about God and his ways but we do know that he is right and just in every decision that he makes. I am glad that God's wisdom and intellect is so much larger than mine, it makes a problem for me when I insist on trying to be a know it all, still I am glad that God is that big. (Psalm 89:13, Isaiah 55:8, Romans 11:33)

Before Christ came the nation of Israel was God's chosen people but now the body of believers have become a nation of chosen people, regardless of race or ethnic background, we have become members of God's kingdom. We are the kingdom of people that have been saved from the kingdom of darkness and now we have a new home which we haven't seen yet. (Exodus 19:4-6, Colossians 1:13)

God's chosen people should look like God

Colossians 3:12-14,17 Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each others faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

All of the blessings and privileges that have been given to such an unworthy person that God chose for himself should have an effect on me and cause me to live for him. If I am truly grateful for God's mercy that I have received then I should be willing to show others the goodness of God. His goodness toward me showed me how to love, how to be merciful and humble and I should be willing to do the same for those around me.

I praise you Lord that you chose to save me, that you gave me a clear picture of how depraved that I am and that you gave me the ability to believe in faith that you love me and died to redeem me.

Privileges Of God's Children: Security

God is my rock in this crazy world.

1 Peter 2:6-8 As the Scriptures say, “I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem, chosen for great honor, and anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” 7 Yes, you who trust him recognize the honor God has given him. But for those who reject him, “The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.”

8 And, “He is the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they do not obey God’s word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them.

Romans 5:8 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

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We see so much insecurity in the economy, dishonesty in our government, and even churches that don't believe things that have always been taught. There is no solid ground in this godless society, moral values are constantly being changed. Isn't there something that we can hold onto and depend on?

Disappointment has the idea of being deceived or being caught off guard, it may be people or it may be circumstances that are beyond our control, our lives are full of disappointments. The more you try to control people and circumstances the more disillusioned you will become.

There is one place to find a lot of promises that have never failed, the Bible is full of promises that God has made to his people and his people have found out that they have never had a reason to be disappointed or ashamed, we have found that the one that we put our hope in is trustworthy.

My God is Faithful

Isaiah 50:7  Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a stone, determined to do His will. And I know that I will not be put to shame.

God is our rock when people disappoint us, God is our rock when life's trials and heartaches get us down, God is our rock for our eternal security! There cannot possibly be a stronger foundation to build your life on.

Our God's faithfulness to his children is beyond comprehension, no wonder the prophet Isaiah said that he would "set his face like a stone, determined to do His will." He knew that he could trust the Lord to be his all in all, he knew that God's power and faithfulness were in his favor and that his problems and disappointments and eternal security were all covered by one person.

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

What do you hold onto when your world is unstable? I hope that it is the God of the universe that has revealed his love for us in the Bible. There isn't a person, an organization or a philosophy that will prove to be better to get you through the storms of life.

Privileges Of God's Children: Access - Part 2

It's your job to offer a sacrifice but it's not a dead animal that God wants.

1 Peter 2:4-5 You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's temple. He was rejected by people, but He was chosen by God for great honor.  5  And you are living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple. What's more, you are His holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.

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In part one of this post about our privilege of having access to God I learned that we are all priest and that we have direct access to God ever since the temple veil was torn at the time of Jesus death. (Matthew 27:50-51) Christ was an acceptable sacrifice and he makes us acceptable so that we can have access beyond the veil directly to God.

Now instead of a priest at the temple I am personally responsible for offering sacrifices to God! One of the jobs of the Old Testament priest was to make sure that the sacrifice met the requirements to be pleasing and acceptable to God and now that I am a priest that is my job. The question is: "How can I know whether my spiritual sacrifices really honor God and what kind of sacrifice does he want?"

Romans 12:1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Present your body as a living and holy sacrifice.

Because of God's great mercy I should be willing to give God everything about my body and my mind, I should be keeping my mind clean and my body in good shape so that I can offer a pleasing sacrifice. I should use every part of my body for his glory and his service. (Romans 6:13)

We are to sacrifice ourselves, not by climbing on an altar but by submitting our lives to God, our thoughts, words and actions should display a willingness to let God be in control. We need to be willing to deny self to serve God and people. The apostle Paul was a great example of this, he said "my life has already been poured out as an offering to God" and he told the church in Philippi that their service to God is an offering. (2 Timothy 4:6, Philippians 2:17)

Sacrificing self comes down to whether I have given my whole mind and body and all my faculties as a living sacrifice to God to do with as He will? All my hopes and dreams included?

Hebrews 13:15-16 Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to His name. 16 And don't forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God.

Bring the sacrifice of praise.

A phrase that can be over used in church circles is "praise the Lord." Bringing a sacrifice of praise goes a lot further than that. The book of Psalms shows us a great model for praising God. The praises focus on who he is, what he has done or they focus on thanksgiving for who he is and what he has done.

Romans 15:16 I am a special messenger from Christ Jesus to you Gentiles. I bring you the Good News so that I might present you as an acceptable offering to God, made holy by the Holy Spirit.

The sacrifice of new disciples.

Paul told the church in Rome that his work which created many new Christ followers was done so that he may present the new converts as an offering to God. Paul had a huge offering of new converts!

This must be the most neglected offering that we give, there are a lot of good Christ followers that are doing well in the areas of praise and living good clean lives but most of us don't consider the importance of this offering. It has been too long since I have lifted up the sacrifice of a new disciple to offer to God.

The only reason the church exists is to stimulate your priestly function. The church is not the end in itself. If all you do is come and go, that's not it. Unless you go out of this place to offer up spiritual sacrifices, we have failed and you have failed to respond.

-John MacArthur 

What are our spiritual sacrifices? Our whole self, praise, good works, sharing, generosity and the souls of redeemed people.

Privileges Of God's Children: Access - Part 1

Don't think that you are much as a child of God?

1 Peter 2:4-5  You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's temple. He was rejected by people, but He was chosen by God for great honor.  5  And you are living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple. What's more, you are His holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.

Hebrews 10:19-22  And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.  20  By His death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.  21  And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God's house,  22  let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting Him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

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In the last post I learned that because of Jesus work on the cross I have the privilege of being joined with Christ as a part of his church, I am one of the living stones that he is using in the construction of the building, but that's not all, I am also a priest in the temple.

Most of the religions in the world have some person that is on a pedestal above the common man, he is the person that has the privilege to be closer to God and speak to their followers on God's behalf, that's not what God has in mind. Even the man made gods that we invent are indifferent and apathetic to our situation, it is usually a relationship based on fear, there isn't an invite from those god's to draw near to them.

I have always heard that we are priest and that we do not need to go through anyone else to have access to God but I have never had a clear picture of what it fully means to be a priest. This study by John MacArthur tells you what it meant to be a priest in the Old Testament as the Bible shows us in Exodus 28 and 29, Leviticus 8 and 9 and Malachi chapter 2.

What A Priest Is

Chosen by God - No volunteers or applications or committees Cleansed of sin - Washed to symbolize the work of Jesus Clothed for service - Their garments symbolized purity Anointed for service - Symbolizing the Holy Spirit on their lives Ordained to obedience - They blew it right away (Leviticus 10:1-7) Walk with God - "they walked with Me, living good and righteous lives" (Malachi2:6) Have an impact on sinners - "they turned many from lives of sin" (Malachi2:6) A high regard for the word of God - People should go to him for instruction (Malachi 2:7)

When the Bible tells us that we are priest that's what it is calling us. We have been chosen by God to be cleansed from our sins and to have the righteousness that comes through Jesus. We have been anointed with the Holy Spirit to have gifts that we should use to serve the body of Christ. We have been called to obedience and to walk with God, meditating on his word so that we can have an impact on the sinful world around us. What an interesting picture from the Old Testament of what I am supposed to be in Christ!

God uses ordinary people

1 Corinthians 1:28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.

Do you think that you are unworthy of being a priest? Did God ever choose anyone other than the weak and the under qualified? When he chose the tribe of Levi, he wasn't choosing the nicest, most holy bunch to be his priest, God did what he always has done, he selected one of the most unlikely tribes in all of Judah. (Genesis 49:5-7)

I have the privilege to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ and I have direct access to God to offer the sacrifices. It doesn't make any difference who i was before I came to Jesus and chose to follow him.

Thank you Lord for choosing me to be a priest, to be clean before you and able to come directly to you, help me to never take my privileges for granted.

Privileges Of God's Children: Union With Christ

I am blessed to be a part of God's temple.

1 Peter 2:4-8 You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's temple. He was rejected by people, but He was chosen by God for great honor. 5 And you are living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple.

What's more, you are His holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. 6 As the Scriptures say, "I am placing a cornerstone in Jerusalem, chosen for great honor, and anyone who trusts in Him will never be disgraced."

7 Yes, you who trust Him recognize the honor God has given Him. But for those who reject Him, "The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone." 8 And, "He is the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they do not obey God's word, and so they meet the fate that was planned for them.

Ephesians 1:3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.

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When we think of being a Christ follower or of being religious we usually think of things that we have to do and how we are to behave and how much we will have to struggle with the flesh in order to live a godly life. Duties are what we think of, similar to the ones that we have seen in 1 Peter 1:13-2:3 in my previous post, but now Peter shifts gears and talks about some of the privileges that we have even while we are still here on earth.

The corner stone set the standard it had to be perfect in it's placement and it had to have perfect angles. It had to be the perfect angle from the left wall to the right wall but it also had to be perfectly straight from bottom to top so that the walls would be perfectly straight up and down.

Most people did not see any value in Jesus, the religious leaders didn't think that he measured up, they would never use him to build a temple, but God is building a temple and Jesus is the cornerstone that he started building with.

“The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.” -Francis Chan

After God put the cornerstone in place he continued building his house of worship with each of us, we are a part of the building, stones are the building materials for this great building. Just like Jesus most people don't see any value in us either but God has given us worth as his children.

We are God's temple

Ephesians 2:20-22 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. 21 We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. 22 Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.

God's people used to have to travel great distances to get to the temple but now the temple in Jerusalem isn't necessary anymore, God has built a new temple that is universally located, it is the body of believers all around the world.

When you became a Christian, the first great spiritual privilege is that you are now in union with Christ. What does that mean? He lives in you as an individual and he lives in his church. That means that you have an awesome resource to meet every need. He is with us always and he is available for every need, every trial, every possible circumstance of life.

Other world religions are busy trying to appease their gods but our God's judgement has been handled by the power of Jesus blood offering.

Ephesians 2:6-7 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.

I am one with Christ and I should allow him to love others and work through me. Jesus life in me should control me and conform me to me more like him everyday. I need to join Paul and say "My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." (Galatians 2:20)