Tag: Jesus

Love for neighbor creates unity in the community and we should seek unity.

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn DevotionalsLeave a comment

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (Gal 5:13)

In Christ we have been set free from the demands of the law. Not that we set the law aside in that we shouldn’t follow God’s Word. No, we must and we should follow God’s Word. A disciple is someone who follows a master. Jesus is our master. We are His disciples. We should follow Him. But we are free from the law’s bondage over us. It is no longer our tutor, teaching, training, restraining and pointing. It has accomplished it’s goal in that it has pointed us to Christ.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. He embodied it perfectly, never breaking a single command. As a result, He is able to be our perfect sacrifice, fulfilling the law on our behalf so as to make those who believe in Him through faith righteous.

Having experienced the freedom Christ provides, we should not use your freedom to satisfy the desires of our flesh. In fact, the opposite is true. Having been set free from the bondage of sin, we should use our freedom to follow Jesus in living according to God’s Word.

Not that it is a bad idea, but we don’t need to memorize all the commands in God’s Word in order to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. The whole law, as we are told in verse 14, can be summed in their phrases, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal 5:14). Paul is playing off Jesus’ answer in the gospels to a question regarding what is the greatest commandment. Jesus answered it is to love God and the second greatest was to love your neighbor (Matt 22:36-40). I believe both ideas are implied here, but the specific focus of the passage in on community, which is why the second greatest commandment is quoted.

It is wrong to say that you love God, while at the same time hating your brother. If you love God, you will love your brother. You will not use your freedom to bite and devour them. Instead, you will use your freedom to show love and care for them. If we seek to devour another instead of living in unity with them, we will be devoured ourselves. So as others attempt to take a bite out of us, we should press into love.

Love for neighbor creates unity in the community and we should seek unity. It is what the law, although imperfectly, was seeking and what we are capable of now that we are freed from the bondage of sin in Christ. We are capable of loving and living in unity with our fellow brothers and sisters. We must press into unity in our community by loving others as we would love ourselves.

You can’t earn your salvation

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn DevotionalsLeave a comment

“yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” (Gal 2:16)

God’s Word could not be more explicit — works of the law do not provide us with salvation. Right now, if you are working for your salvation, you will never gain it. You will never do enough to make yourself righteous in the sight of God. You can’t because you are infected with sin. You are totally corrupted by sin. Sins mark is on you and you cannot remove it in and of yourself. Sin is like a 500 lb gorilla on your back that you don’t know is there but you are carrying it around. Even if you knew it was there, you could not remove it yourselves.

However, all is not lost. We can experience salvation and release from the bondage of sin. Not through our actions, but through Jesus — the perfect God man — to substitute His Work and perfection for our works and imperfection. By faith in Jesus’ work on our behalf we are saved. We are justified through Jesus’ work. Justified is a legal term that means we are declared righteous before God. It is not that we are actually righteous in and of ourselves, but a declaration of righteousness is pronounced on us through our faith in Jesus’ right action on our part.

If you are struggling to save yourselves, stop struggling because it will never happen. If you are living in anxiety constantly wondering if you have done enough to please God, listen to your anxiety and wonder. It is telling you something. It is telling you that the system you are using for self-salvation is not working. You can’t earn salvation. It is only through faith in Jesus’ work that we are justified.

Instead of trusting in a new year, trust in the Lord.

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals4 Comments

“Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!” (Psalm 4:1)

Today marks the beginning of 2021. For many of us, we are hoping it is a better year than 2020. A vaccine promises relief from the Corona Virus, a return to work, activity, and visiting with family and friends. A new year marks a new beginning, new resolutions, and new goals.

While 2021 offers us a new start, we must not put our hope in the turn of a calendar page. Though it is January 1, 2021, a new year, it is just another day. Another day with its own successes and problems. Distress, anxiety, and all our problems haven’t disappeared because the date turned over.

Instead of trusting in a new year for relief, trust in the One who can and does provide relief. Place your trust in the Lord. The God of the universe. The One who pours His immeasurable grace out on us and who answers our prayers.

Instead of trusting in a new year, trust in the Lord.

When the gospel is faithfully preached, taught, and lived, its your affections that restrict you

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn DevotionalsLeave a comment

“You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections.” (2 Cor 6:12)

When the gospel is faithfully proclaimed, taught, and lived it’s not the person proclaiming, teaching, and living that restricts others from following God’s Word. Instead, it is the person’s affections that restrict them from turning to the Lord.

Affections refer to what we love. They determine what we are drawn to and what captures our attention. When we refuse to turn to the Lord, our affections are captured by something or someone else.

If we claim to be Christian, we must allow Jesus and Jesus alone to capture our attention. We shouldn’t be drawn to anyone or anything else but Him.

When the gospel is being faithfully proclaimed, taught, and lived, that which restricts someone from coming to Christ or following Him in obedience is their own affections. To what are your affections given? Are they given to the world? Are they given to something or someone more than to Jesus? God desires our heart, our affections, our love.

What is God’s purpose in allowing us to suffer and face difficulties?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn DevotionalsLeave a comment

“Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” (2 Cor 1:9)

Why doesn’t God take the pain away? Why doesn’t He free us from all difficulties? Is it because we don’t have enough faith? Some would want you to believe your difficulties are correlated with your lack of faith, but that is not the biblical answer.

Paul had faith. He worked for the Lord tirelessly, traveling around the known world at the time preaching the gospel. He, however, was ridiculed, arrested, beaten, and left for dead. He experienced difficulty not in one city but in several. In the verse preceding the above Paul relays to the Corinthians that he was “so utterly burdened beyond [his] strength that [he] despaired of life itself.” (2 Cor 1:8).

What was God’s purpose in allowing Paul to suffer? What is God’s purpose in allowing us to suffer and face difficulties?

Deep down we believe we can do life on our own. That we are capable of handling anything that comes at us. Our culture — the books we read and the movies we watch — drill that idea into our heads. We are told we can be like Mike. No mountain is to high for us to climb. No task to difficult. That we need only to pull up our boot straps and get to work. We are the master of our own ship. We can sail that ship wherever we want in our own strength and ingenuity.

While these mantras are popular, they aren’t true. Life doesn’t work that way. Most all of us will never play like Mike. There will be mountains too high to climb and tasks too difficult for us to do. While we might be able to sail some places in our ship, we can’t sail around the world. Sometimes our boot straps break!

What is God’s purpose in allowing us to suffer and face difficulties? It is so we might rely on God and not ourselves. God is all-powerful, all-capable, all-sovereign. There is nothing too much for God. We must depend on Him to accomplish what we can’t. To help us with our tasks. To use us to accomplish our mission and purpose in the world to make disciple-making disciples for His glory.

When we live in prayerful dependence on the Lord, we experience joy, meaning, and purpose.

Death is the great equalizer but there is hope

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn DevotionalsLeave a comment

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Cor 15:20)

Death is the great equalizer. No matter how rich or poor all will face the same fate. We will all die one day. We cannot in and of ourselves escape the grip of death. It’s grasp is too strong for us to break.

There is one, however, who broke death’s grip. That person is Jesus. He died at the hands of the Romans on request of the Jews. Beaten to a bloody pulp, a crown of thorns pressed into His scalp, nailed to a cross, spear pierced His side once His last breath was breathed. Jesus was dead when He was removed from the cross.

Instead of being throne in the city dump, He was laid in the grave of a rich man. Even though a massive stone was rolled in front and guards were stationed at the tomb, Jesus walked out after three days. He defeated death.

Jesus’ victory provides hope. Not just hope for this life, but for the life to come. All those who believe in Jesus will be raised from the dead to eternal life. Death is not the end for Christians. Death is just the beginning of life in a perfect world ruled by a perfect King.

Jesus is the first fruits. He is the beginning. The first to be raised. Will you follow Him? Will you be among the fruit that is gathered into the Kingdom to Come?