Faith Archives - Page 3 of 3

Mother’s Day 2011

May 10, 2011 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Ecclesiology, Faith, Meditations

Psalm 113:4-6,9 (NKJV)
The Lord is high above all nations, His glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, Who dwells on high, Who humbles Himself to behold The things that are in the heavens and in the earth? … He grants the barren woman a home, Like a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord!

Sarai was barren. For nearly eighty years she had longed for a child, longed to cuddle and nurse and play. But now her hope was gone; she no longer dreamed. But God heard her. He sent his angel to announce that she would give birth to a son. And though Sarai first laughed in scorn, reasoning that this man in her tent didn’t know the first thing about barren wombs, Sarah later laughed in joy, understanding that the wisdom of God is foolishness to men.

Leah was unloved. Passed off as her more attractive younger sister she saw in her husband’s eye the torch of pity and resentment that broke her heart and made her weep. And when her sister was likewise married to her husband, her personal grief only increased. But God heard her. He opened her womb and gave her many children – and though her hope that her husband would love her was never fully realized, God loved her and raised up her son Judah to be the father of our Savior.

Tamar was shamed and scorned. Married to two men who had both been scoundrels, she was now being deceived by the father of those scoundrels, Judah. Though he had promised to give her his third son as husband, Judah’s promise was empty. He had decided, as most scoundrels do, that Tamar was the problem not his sons. So Tamar cried out to God and God heard her. He granted her success as she laid plans to entrap the worthless man Judah; and when she had conceived and Judah was prepared to destroy her, God delivered her from his hands, changing the scoundrel Judah into the man Judah. And Tamar’s son Perez became the ancestor of our Lord Jesus.

Manoah’s wife was barren. Her lifeless womb had given them no children and her grief was great. But God heard her. He sent his angel to announce that she would give birth to a son who would deliver Israel from her enemies – and she, unlike Sarai, believed and told her husband. And so Manaoh went in to his wife and she conceived and she bore a son whom they called Samson.

Elizabeth was old and barren yet full of faith and good works. She and her husband Zacharias served the Lord, loving him, cherishing his laws, delighting in his ways – all the while longing for a child. God heard her. He gave her a son in her old age and made him the last and greatest of all the prophets of the Judaic Age.

Mary was a righteous young woman, pregnant by God’s own power and facing the prospect of a betrothed who was determined to divorce her. She cried out to God and God heard her. He visited Joseph in a dream and Joseph remained with her becoming the human father of our Lord.

The Syro-Phoenician woman was desperate. Her daughter was deathly ill and no physicians could help. Then she received news that the Jewish prophet Jesus was in her town. She frantically searched for him and, humiliation of humiliation, begged him to heal her daughter. But he rejected her plea. And so she cried out to him, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the scraps from under the master’s table.” And God heard her. He healed her daughter and sent his new daughter home.

Clotilde was anxious. Her first child had died shortly after his baptism and now her second child, also baptized and only a few weeks old, was ill. Her unbelieving husband mocked and scorned – this is what comes of following this new religion of yours! Clotilde cried out to God and God heard her. He rescued the child from death and used Clotilde’s faith to turn her husband Clovis, King of the Franks, to Christ.

Brothers and sisters, the love of mothers has prompted God to move and to act from the earliest days of biblical history to today. So mothers – love your children and pray for them. God will hear you. Others – love your mothers and give thanks to God for them. Reminded that we have taken our mothers for granted, let us kneel and seek God’s forgiveness.

Fear an Instrument in God’s Hands

December 12, 2010 in Bible - OT - Deuteronomy, Confession, Faith, Meditations

Deuteronomy 11:25 (NKJV)
25 No man shall be able to stand against you; the Lord your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.

The book of Deuteronomy has a lot to say about fear – fear of God, fear of men, fear of enemies, and even, as we see in our text today, fear of God’s people. God promises Israel as they are on the cusp of entering the promised land – trust in me, believe in Me, serve Me, fear Me, and I will cause your enemies to fear you and to fall before you.

We witness the fulfillment of this promise in the words of Rahab to the spies that Joshua sent to Jericho. Rahab informed the men that the terror of them had fallen upon the city and that the inhabitants were fainthearted because of them. We see God using fear to bless His people again in the book of Judges. Gideon, for example, sneaks into the enemy camp at night and there hears two soldiers speaking in fear of the way God had raised up Gideon as a deliverer. When we as God’s people fear Him, He grants success to our labors by causing dread to fall upon our enemies.

However, fear is not only an instrument that God uses to bless His people, it is also an instrument he uses to judge us. For if we fail to fear Him, fail to honor Him, to serve Him, to glorify Him, then He causes us to grow fearful of our enemies.

‘And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee; they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword, and they shall fall when no one pursues. They shall stumble over one another, as it were before a sword, when no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. (Lev 26:36-37)

What we see, therefore, is that fear is a tool God uses – He is the one who instills the dread of others. Sometimes He uses it to bless His people – making others fear them to the advance of the Kingdom of God. Sometimes, however, God uses fear to judge His people – making them fearful of others that they might be purified and learn to fear Him once again. Both types of fear come from the hand of God – one in blessing, the other in judgment.

So here’s the question: which are we experiencing? By and large, the people of God in America are afraid and our enemies are not. Unrighteousness is on the increase. The attacks on God’s rule are more and more strident. Why? Because the Living God, the One who rules and governs the affairs of men, is chastising His Church for her unfaithfulness. The problem, in other words, is not out there but in here. We haven’t feared God as we ought, we haven’t served the Lord as we ought, and so He has delivered us over to our fears. There is sin in the camp and so God is judging His people so that we will remember to fear Him, to honor Him, to serve Him.

So what is the solution? Confession, repentance, and faith. We must confess our fear, turn from our sins, and put our trust in the Lord, standing firm against our enemies knowing that the Lord is on our side and so we need not be afraid. So let us begin this morning by confessing our sins to the Lord together.

Don’t Trust Your Strength

February 22, 2010 in Bible - NT - Colossians, Faith, Meditations

No sin is more common among those who have a passion for righteousness and purity than to imagine that these things are to be achieved by human striving rather than divine grace. The Pharisees fell into the trap, the Galatians fell into the trap, the Judaizers fell into the trap, Peter fell into the trap, and, according to our text today, the Colossians were in danger of falling into the trap. After all, nothing makes more sense than to say that if we want to pursue the righteousness of God, then we must earn it; we must strive for it; we must achieve it.

For the last several weeks we have been considering the strength that God has placed in young men, the particular gifts that He has given them. Our text today in Colossians reminds all of us, young men included, that native strength is not the key to victory over the evil one – the key is faith, trust in the promises of God.

Paul exhorts us to walk in Christ, to conduct our lives, according to the same principle that united us with Christ in the first place. And what was that principle? Faith. Faith united us with Christ, was the appointed means by which God credited to our account the righteousness of Christ, was the gift that enabled us to emerge from the shadow of darkness into the light of life.

So let us be absolutely clear that we understand what this means. Young men, do not trust in your strength – trust in the goodness of God who has given you strength. What do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast?

Paul urges us to pursue our growth in grace by looking not to our own worth, not to our own deserving, not to our own wisdom, but looking instead to the grace of God, the mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who has given us all things. And precisely because He has given us all things, we should be the most grateful people on earth, we should be “abounding with thanksgiving.”

And so, reminded that God’s grace is the source of our strength and wisdom; that that which distinguishes us from our neighbor is not our commitment, not our determination, not anything of ours, but rather the completely free grace of God, let us kneel and confess that we often fall into the sin of imagining that it is by our own strength that we serve the Lord and not by the strength which He has supplied.

Tobacco Czars

November 17, 2009 in Bible - OT - Deuteronomy, Faith, Meditations

Deuteronomy 11:26-28 (NKJV)
26 “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.

You’ll pardon me if, for a time, I take a break from our series on the lessons taught by different members of the Christian community. For some reason the decision by a few major universities to ban tobacco products on their campuses has made its way to national news this past week. The University of Montana – of all places! – has become the latest in a series of schools to propose such a policy, to become effective this spring semester. The student body leaders and many of their professors are rejoicing with euphoric glee – ah, we’re finally ridding the earth of that nasty tobacco.

What we as God’s people need to see is the way in which the passing of such policies represents a concession on the part of these schools to an anti-Christian worldview. After all, let us conduct a thought experiment. Imagine that instead of outlawing tobacco products, the university instead passed policies banning sexual fornication or sodomy. Can’t you just hear the hew and cry already? How dare you infringe on my personal liberty? How can you be so judgmental? You’re just a fascist neo-Nazi!

But note, if you will, the incredible inconsistency. Where’s the cry for our poor smokers out there? For the tobacco farmers who are being viciously persecuted and financially ruined? You see the issue is not whether we as a culture will have certain things that are taboo – this is inevitable. The question is rather which worldview will define that which is taboo. Which god or gods will we listen to as a culture? To whose voice will we give heed?

And it is this very challenge that God placed in front of the people of Israel as they were preparing to enter the Promised Land. He set before them quite clearly the blessing and the curse. If you listen to Me, God said, and to My voice, loving Me, serving Me, observing My commandments then you will be blessed. If, however, you follow after other gods, listen to their voice, give heed to them and to their standards, then you will be cursed.

Our calling as the people of God is to cling to God’s standards, to cherish His law, to praise what He would praise and to condemn what He would condemn. And the banning of all tobacco products because they’re “bad for you” is not something He would praise. “For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men.” Rather smoke a pack a day than once steal from your neighbor. Rather chew and spit in the spittoon than once fornicate with your neighbor.

Reminded of our abandonment of God’s standards in favor of our own, let us kneel and confess our sins to Him.

Walking by Faith

February 2, 2009 in Bible - NT - Colossians, Faith, Meditations, Sanctification

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. 8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. Colossians 2:6-10

No sin is more common among those who have a passion for righteousness and purity than to imagine that these things are to be achieved by human striving rather than divine grace. The Pharisees fell into the trap, the Galatians fell into the trap, the Judaizers fell into the trap, Peter fell into the trap, and, according to our text today, the Colossians were in danger of falling into the trap. After all, nothing makes more sense than to say that if we want to pursue the righteousness of God, then we must earn it; we must strive for it; we must achieve it.

Today in our sermon we consider the weapons of our warfare – the tools that God has given us to fight against the enemy. It is imperative as we learn to utilize these weapons that we do so in the way that our Lord intends – that we not turn the muzzle the wrong way and end up shooting ourselves or our allies rather than our enemy. It is to alert us to this danger that we look at Paul’s exhortation in Colossians today.

Let us be absolutely clear that we understand what this means. Faith brings nothing of its own to the transaction; we did not receive Christ because we were wiser than our neighbor; we did not receive Christ because we were more intelligent than our neighbor; we did not receive Christ because of anything in us. For by nature we are all children of wrath, deserving of destruction, committed to waste and profligacy. What then does faith do? Looking to self and despairing of any self-deliverance, faith looks to Christ and rests upon Him for deliverance – save me O Lord, for I am helpless and needy; have mercy on me, for I am a sinner worthy of death.

And so Paul urges us to pursue our growth in grace with this same basic framework. Look, Paul exhorts us, not to your own worth, not to your own deserving, not to your own wisdom, but look instead to the grace of God, the mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who frees us from our self-absorption and enables us to pursue righteousness to the glory of God. God will not honor those who strive to achieve righteousness on their own strength. For the very message of the Gospel is that we cannot achieve such righteousness; and that to try to do so is to proclaim the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus worthless and to trample underfoot the blood of the covenant by which we were sanctified.

And so, reminded that God’s grace is the source of our strength and wisdom; that that which distinguishes us from our neighbor is not our commitment, not our determination, not anything of ours, but rather the completely free grace of God, let us kneel and confess that we often fall into the sin of imagining that having been justified by faith we are sanctified by our own works, that we are called to fight the battle in our own way.

Old Testament Faith

January 26, 2009 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Faith, Meditations, Old Testament

Psalm 69:29-33 (NKJV)29 But I am poor and sorrowful; Let Your salvation, O God, set me up on high. 30 I will praise the name of God with a song, And will magnify Him with thanksgiving. 31 This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bull, Which has horns and hooves. 32 The humble shall see this and be glad; And you who seek God, your hearts shall live. 33 For the Lord hears the poor, And does not despise His prisoners.

Within the last two centuries much has been made of the supposed contrast between the faith of our fathers in the Old Testament and the faith of God’s people in the New Testament. It has been said that the Old Testament was an economy of works where our fathers were required to earn their salvation by their own merits whereas the New Testament is an economy of grace in which salvation is a free gift. Others have said that the Old Testament articulate an external religion, based wholly and entirely upon rituals and regulations whereas the New Testament is focused upon the heart and the inward attitude of the worshiper toward God. The Old Testament was focused upon the corporate deliverance of Israel whereas the New Testament focuses upon individual salvation.

What does David say to these supposed contrasts? Hog-wash. Well he doesn’t say it in quite those terms but notice what he does say – I am poor and sorrowful – me, individual me, not corporate Israel, but lonely old me – rescue me O Lord, set me on high. Was Israel poor and sorrowful as well? Yes. Did Israel too need to be set on high? Yes. Did this mean that David didn’t? No.

But notice that David goes on. “I will praise the name of God with a song, And will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the LORD better than an ox or bull, Which has horns and hooves.”

Wait, David, you can’t say that. The Old Testament is all about ritual. How can you say that your songs of thanksgiving please God better than an ox or bull? I don’t remember reading that in Exodus! You must have missed the whole point of the law. O, but wait, the Holy Spirit inspired you to write this didn’t He? Hum. I guess you must be right. I guess I must have missed the whole point of Exodus. The Old Testament really is all about personal faith and trust in the Lord that manifests itself in godly worship.

Now don’t get things wrong. I’ve emphasized where the contrast between the Old and New Testaments does not lie. There is a contrast between the Old and New Testaments. But the contrast lies not in the God who is worshiped, not in the reverence He demands, not in the standards He maintains, not in the faith He expects, but in the fullness of the revelation now that the Christ has come. I have come, Jesus declares to us, to fulfill the law – to manifest the full extent of what My Father promised throughout the ages but has now manifested in My presence. He who has seen Me, he declares, has seen the Father, the very Father who redeemed Israel from Egypt, the very Father who spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, the very Father who overthrew the town of Jericho, the very Father who raised up Samson, Gideon, Deborah, and Jephthah to deliver our fathers from bondage, the very Father who inspired the prophet Elijah to contend with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, the very Father who raised up Nebuchadnezzar and then drove him mad – he who has seen Me, Jesus declares, has seen this Father.

And so whereas we once saw the Father dimly, through clouds and fire and vapors of smoke, we now have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

And so having come into the presence of such an august company, let us kneel and confess our sins to God seeking His forgiveness for despising the first portion of our Bibles.

Planning in Faith

August 25, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Faith, Meditations, Sovereignty of God

James 4:13-16 (NKJV)13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” 16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

We as sinners like to imagine that we are in control. We buy Franklin Planners and chart out our responsibilities. We rank them with our As, Bs, and Cs. We check them off when we’re done and get the little rush of endorphins. “Ah, I’m in control,” we say to ourselves. “I’ve got it all together. I am the master of my own destiny. Nothing shall stop me.”

It is this type of sin that James addresses with these words to his audience. They boasted in their arrogance. They imagined that they were the ultimate shapers and molders of their own destiny. But James calls them up short – you don’t even know, O foolish man, what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. You are nothing; your plans are nothing; your Franklin Planner is nothing; you are not in control. You are a vapor hovering over the ground subject to the blowing of the wind, the rising of the sun, a change in the temperature. If the wind begins to blow, you float away. If the sun rises, you vanish. If the temperature changes, you get lighter or heavier depending on the change. You are not the master of your own destiny.

Well, if I’m not, who is? God is. God is the master of your destiny. Solomon tells us in Proverbs 16:9, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Our lives rest in the hand of God; He is the Lord. He causes the wind to blow; He causes the sun to rise; He causes the temperature to change. He is the One who wields the nations like a woodsman wielding his axe. “Come and do my bidding,” he declares. “Invade the northern territories of Georgia. Unsettle their population. Uproot their democracy.” And then He declares, “And afterward I shall punish the pride of your heart; I shall overthrow your wickedness. For shall the axe boast itself over the woodsman who wields it?”

So what does James have to tell us today? When you are making plans and decisions – which we all must do – when you are orchestrating a move, making an investment in some new business, selecting a spouse, organizing a date with your beloved, driving to the store to buy groceries, do so in faith, saying, “If the Lord wills, we shall do this or that.” Acknowledge the sovereign Lordship of God and hold all your plans, even those closest to your heart, in uplifted hands that are open to the sovereign intervention of our Lord. He is in control.

Unfortunately, rather than plan in faith, we plan in unbelief. We plan as though we are the master and so we get bent out of shape when our plans are thwarted. We gather all the kids and pack them in the car, getting ready to head to the store and what happens? Junior hits his sister. What is our response? Do we take this as an opportunity given to us by the hand of our loving Father to intervene and train our son? Not likely. How do we respond? With frustration and anger that our plans, orchestrated so carefully, have been thwarted. “Don’t you know, junior, how long it takes me to get everyone dressed and in the car?” But here’s the question – who thwarted your plans? Did your son? No – not ultimately. God did. He crafted this moment just for you. “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”

Reminded that we often plan in unbelief and not in faith, let us kneel and confess our sin to the Lord.

What is Saving Faith?

April 14, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Faith, Meditations

James 2:18-19 (NKJV)18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!

Last week James invited us to make the distinction between the profession of saving faith and the possession of saving faith. If we merely claim to believe in Jesus but our claim is not validated by our works, then we are simply professors of faith not possessors of faith. We will be those to whom the Lord says on the last day – “Depart from me you who practice lawlessness for I never knew you.”

But what exactly is saving faith? What is this thing that the Lord works in the hearts of His people and through which He unites them to Himself? In the passage today James makes yet another distinction which helps form the foundation of the traditional way theologians discuss the various elements of saving faith – notitia, assentia, and fiducia. What do these fancy words mean?

Notitia insists that saving faith contains a basic knowledge of God and the content of the Gospel. In order to believe in the Gospel and be delivered from our sin, we must know the nature of our sin and the promise of the Gospel. Saving faith involves knowledge. “For there is a way which seems right to a man but in the end it is the way of death.” We must know the correct way.

But mere knowledge is not sufficient for saving faith. As James remarks in our passage today – the demons know as much and tremble! No one knows the truth quite so well as the evil one and his legions; but no one hates it so viciously either. And so joined to notitia, knowledge, must be assentia, assent. We must not only know what the truth is, we must acknowledge that it is in fact true. Saul knew in his bones that David was not out to destroy him, yet he refused to believe his better wisdom. We must give our assent to the things that the Spirit of God brings to our awareness.

But even joining knowledge with assent, we don’t yet have a sufficient definition of saving faith. For when we come in saving faith to our Lord, not only do we know the truth at a basic level, not only do we give our assent to these things, saying, “Yes, those things are in fact true and lovely”, we also heartily embrace the One who has revealed these truths to us and enabled us to give our assent to them. Saving faith involves not only notitia and assentia but also fiducia. Christianity is ultimately not about knowing a number of facts and giving our assent to them; it certainly involves this, but is not defined by this. Christianity is ultimately about putting our trust in the One who has revealed these things to us. And this is what fiducia is – trust; embracing Christ Himself and clinging to Him as the solution for our sin.

This saving faith – notitia, assentia, and fiducia – is the very thing that the Spirit of God creates within us when He unites us to Christ. He opens our minds that we might acknowledge the truth, He woos our affections that we might give our assent to it, He moves our wills that we might embrace Christ – and so what kind of people ought we to be? How thankful ought we to be?

Reminded of the true nature of what the Spirit of God creates in us and our failure to be grateful, let us kneel and confess our sin to the Lord.

Profession versus Possession

April 7, 2008 in Bible - NT - James, Faith, Meditations

James 2:14-17 (NKJV)14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

This morning we return, after our Easter hiatus, to the book of James. And it will be helpful as we do so to remember what James has told us thus far in this chapter. He began by rebuking his readers for showing partiality to the rich and famous while embarrassing and demeaning the poor. In response to their hypothetical objection that they were simply treating the rich as they would themselves desire to be treated – James says, “Fine, if that’s what you’re doing then well and good. But if you are showing partiality you are convicted by the law as transgressors – indeed,” James declares, “you are murderers.”

In the text before us today, James counters a possible objection to his scathing analysis of their behavior from the law, an objection that is frequently raised in our culture today. “How dare you judge us James?” his audience will no doubt be tempted to ask. “We profess the same Jesus as you. We believe. We have been freed from the law by Jesus. How dare you judge us!”

And so James asks a series of common sense questions to drive home the distinction between the profession of saving faith and the possession of saving faith.

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?

Using a different analogy than James’ to make the same point, I can claim to be a patriot all day, but if meanwhile I’m out selling secrets to the enemy I can hardly use my claim of patriotism in my defense. No patriot sells secrets to the enemy; and no Christian lives lawlessly. And so, James says, my judgment is simple common sense – I’m judging you because you are hypocrites. Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. James tells us that there is a distinction between professing to have saving faith in Jesus Christ and actually possessing that faith.

Such judgments are of course easy to make of our neighbors. But James would have us to turn the mirror toward ourselves – to look at ourselves in the perfect law, the law of liberty, and to note what kind of people we are. So what of us? What excuses have we made of late for our disobedience to God’s commands? What outbursts of anger have escaped our lips? What impatience has marred our homes? What hypocrisy has tainted our witness? Do we merely profess to believe in Jesus or do we demonstrate by our Spirit empowered works that we actually believe in Him?

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’” Look, Lord, at all these spiritual experiences we’ve had. I raised my hand, I prayed the sinner’s prayer, I signed the card. “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Mt 7:21-23)

Reminded of the distinction between professing saving faith and possessing saving faith, let us kneel and beseech the Lord that He would cultivate the latter in our hearts and forgive us for transgressing against Him.