Church meeting Devotions: On the Edge - Psalm 14

Psalm 14:1      The fool says in his heart,” There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

Like everyone else, I struggle with my faith at times. I’ve always believed in God as far back as I can remember, but it’s what I believe in God that keeps changing. When I first became a Christian, I wanted to convert the entire world. I actually preached on street corners in Scotland and sang hymns outside of Glasgow pubs. I was fearless for Christ and wanted to show the world what unbelievers were missing. I guess I must have appeared like a religious freak to most of my drunken audience, but I was on fire for the Lord and it didn’t bother me.

These days, I would find it tough and perhaps be too embarrassed to preach outside a city bar. I get in enough trouble preaching from the relative safety of a church pulpit. Sometimes my zeal to get the Gospel message across has caused some people to get upset and leave the church. A sermon that stings is sometimes too close to the truth, even for me.

Faith is a precious gift from God, but sometimes we foolishly take it for granted or allow ourselves to cast it aside in order to indulge in sinful things. We totter on the edge of foolishness which, for some people, can lead to affluence and unbelief, indifference and apostasy. I’m not one of those who subscribes to the belief that ‘once saved means always saved.’ I think that we can lose our salvation if we lose ourselves to the wiles of the world, which is why Jesus says in Mark’s Gospel: “Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."(Mark 4 v 25) If we were saved for all time, we could give our hearts to Christ at the age of three and spend the next 97 years doing whatever we liked.

When I preach the message on Sunday mornings, I am very much aware that we’re all just living on the edge of eternity. Who knows what tomorrow may bring, so that is why we all need to get our hearts and minds, our lives and ways right with God through Christ today. To do anything else or to leave it for another time is plainly foolish and just as bad as the person with no belief at all.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, let this be the day when we all completely surrender our lives to You. Let this be the time when we allow You totally into our hearts, to change us forever. Enable us not to keep back anything or any part of us from You. Take away our foolishness and fill us with true faith. In Your Holy Name, we humbly pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send John an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Church Meeting Devotions: Basic Christianity

Mark 2:5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Last night, I went down to my favorite fishing hole at Concord Park. I sat on the rocks for about an hour, reading one of my favorite books. It’s called “Basic Christianity” and it was written by John Stott. I read it years ago when I was in Scotland after a friend suggested it to me. John Stott is a great English preacher and he writes with a wonderful clarity.

I was reading a chapter about Jesus and the claims He made about Himself. As John Stott puts it, we can’t know much about Christianity until we learn about Christ. This makes what Christ had to say about Himself as very important to our faith. We cannot pick and choose what we like about Jesus and disregard the rest.

One of the claims that Christ made, which got Him into a lot of bother, was the ability to forgive sins. In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus forgives the sins of the paralytic before He sets out to physically heal the sick man. It caused a great deal of consternation amongst the witnesses because they thought that who else but God can forgive sins? Some of them wanted to stone Jesus to death for blasphemy. They didn’t care about the sick man; they only wanted to purge the community of Christ’s sinful mistake.

I guess we would be much the same. If a preacher were to come into our town proclaiming that he had the power to forgive all of our sins, we’d probably tar and feather that person and kick him out of town.

John Stott says that Jesus claimed this divine power for Himself and that we have to deal with this issue. If Christ is truly the Son of God, then He can indeed forgive our sins. But if He does forgive our sins, then don’t we owe Him all of our faith, allegiance, and loyalty? In other words, you can’t go halfway and make a compromise with Christ. It’s either all or nothing.

In these confusing days when we are bombarded with New Age philosophies and other world religions, it’s hard to make a total commitment to Christ. It’s like putting all of our eggs in one basket, whilst so many people in the world want to keep their options open. But as Stott writes throughout the book, either Jesus is both everything He says He is, and His claims are unchangeable, or Christ has made false claims about Himself and Christianity is untenable.

For me, I think both Christ and Stott have it completely right. Jesus is God’s Son and the Savior of the world; so when I need forgiveness, I confidently come and pray to Him.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are the Son of the Living God, the Savior of the World, and the Lord of our lives. You alone have the power to forgive our sins and restore us to God. We rejoice in Your Sovereignty and Authority. We praise You both now and forevermore. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment on today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.