O Blessed Sinner

IBS Application for John 12:26 “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me the Father will honor him.” Here, Jesus establishes what a life of service means for His disciples. In being called into a life of discipleship, we’re all called into the service of the Lord as well. And serving the Lord means following in the footsteps of Christ, even to the point of death, if need be. While death by persecution isn’t necessarily a guarantee, the fact of the matter is that service to Jesus means giving up one’s own life in the same manner that He surrendered His for our sake. He lead His disciples by an example of self-sacrificial service to others. He says as much to all who were following Him around, asking Him questions. The purpose of the analogy about the wheat falling into the earth and dying was to show that all people must die to self in order to produce good fruit. If they don’t they stand alone, apart from Go

IBS Application for 1 Corinthians 12:14-15 “For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.” I’ve always found this verse to be very convicting, personally. I struggle with knowing what my place within the body is. When I see how other believers have found their place and are functioning well within that role, I’ve gotten envious of them, and I want to be like them and try to imitate them. The problem is, I haven’t been made for any role other than my role. I may not still have a firm grasp on what my role is, yet. But I know that it isn’t to be like most of my brothers and sisters. David said in Psalms 139 that he praised God because he had been “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The entirety of that Psalm is all about God’s intimate knowledge of every part of us as our Creator. We’re all uniquely made to serve God’s purposes. He didn

IBS Application for Romans 15:1 “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” Like some of the other more recent verses to be featured as part of our IBS list for this week, there’s a great deal of applicable truth contained within this one verse. This one has a great deal of context to work with, though. The context in this case, is a long series of exhortations in the chapters leading up to this chapter concerning the ways in which Paul had observed “failings of the weak” in the church. The observations of these failings covered a wide range of ways in which people commonly fail to hit the mark. In some cases, the failings had to do with failing to live as living sacrifices, as Christ did; in other cases, it was an issue with being subject to authority; in others still, it was a failure to not pass judgement on a fellow believer in an unrighteous manner. There’s more mentioned in these preceding chapters, but l

IBS Application for Galatians 5:13 “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.” I feel that there’s more truth in this verse than we often realize as Believers. I feel as though we forget all too easily the fact that we aren’t condemned by the Law any longer; rather, we have freedom in Christ. “He whom the Som has set free is free indeed.” The exact details of how and why this is so isn’t all that important as it pertains to this topic; the author of Hebrews did a good job explaining why we can have this freedom. There is one aspect of how this freedom works that I want to address, however: The love that God has called us to have for each other. God established the New Covenant with us as the church that all people might have salvation and freedom, and this was an act born of His love for us. Therefore, it’s only fitting that a covenant born of love would require those unde

IBS Application for 1 Corinthians 9:22 “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” Paul had a thorough understanding of what would be needed to reach and share the message of the Gospel with anyone and everyone he came across. While this certainly could be attributed to him having the gift of discernment, it’s also true that he was a very intelligent man who knew how to address an audience. He made use of the blessings of education he had received in his upbringing to glorify Christ. In the same way that Paul was prepared to be able to minister and witness to those who had yet to hear the message of salvation on a rhetorical level, I believe that it may be prudent for us as the modern church to follow his example in this regard, that we too might be used by God to save nonbelievers. I’m not saying that everyone should study rhetoric in the same way and at the same level that Paul had d

IBS Application for Ephesians 5:21 “...submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Reverent submission to the Lord and mutual submission to our brothers and sisters go hand in hand. When you think about the context in which Paul writes this verse, in which he is telling the Ephesians to walk as imitators of Christ in love for both Him and each other, it becomes easy to connect this verse to Christ’s declaration of the greatest commandment: That we should love God with all that we are, and that the second greatest commandment which is like it is that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. These two commandments being similar in the eyes of the Lord suggests that doing the first entails the doing the second. Loving God with all we are ought to inspire a love for the people around us. This also makes sense, because God tells us that the manner in which He wants us to express our love for Him is in loving others in the manner He has shown love to us. Now, w

IBS Application for Hebrews 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.” Submission to authority is something we’ve all struggled with at one point or another. Whether it be submission to God or to someone God has put in our lives, no one is exempt from conviction of the sin of disobedience to authority. But this verse has something special to say about why we ought to obey our authority. God has placed all authority over us for a reason. We also have a promise that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Therefore, it’s easy to see that any authority placed over us is placed over us for our benefit, assuming that we are living within His will and answering His call. If this weren’t enough evidence from Scripture as to why we should obey

IBS Application for Ephesians 6:1 & Colossians 3:20 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” I can’t talk about these passages without immediately thinking about all the ways in which this command has been abused in my own life. God’s command here has never been a hard one for me to follow. But it has led to some instances of strife in my life. Sometimes intense strife. Don’t get me wrong; neither of my parents have ever told me to do something that was outright and obviously morally compromising. But there was a time of my life when being obedient was actually the wrong thing to do. Not because the act of obedience was bad in itself; rather, it was because both I and the parent in question were refusing to be obedient to our Heavenly Father. I imagine that the part about how me acting in obedience to my parent was sinful doesn’t make much sense. Essentially, my parent was

IBS Application for Romans 6:16 “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” This is one of the times in Scripture in which an ultimatum was delivered unto the audience. In this case, it is fairly straightforward: You are either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ. There is no middle ground here. More specifically, Paul is saying here that being a slave to Christ means living a life of obedience to God. And as we saw in yesterday’s IBS on Acts 5:29, the price of obedience can be great. Peter and the other apostles got persecuted repeatedly and received a beating in that section of Scripture alone. But they bore this burden gladly. By contrast, we have another example in Acts 12 of one who was a slave to sin and was lead to death because of it. Herod the king was struck down by the Lord for his arrogance and his r

IBS Application for Acts 5:29 “But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men.’” Here in Acts, we have one of many examples of Biblical obedience being demonstrated through Peter and the other apostles. In this particular story, we see Peter and the others being led before the Sanhedrin to answer once more for the “crime” of teaching the Gospel in the name of Jesus Christ. Peter and the others had been given an immediate mandate after having just been freed from prison by an angel. The angel told them to go teach the Gospel to the people in the temple. They had already been arrested once to teach them not to defy the commands of the Sanhedrin; now that they were free, they had just been told to do the very thing that had landed them in prison in the first place. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But they were never given any assurance that persecution would never come. In fact, Jesus told them that this would happen. But they remained obedient to the a

IBS Application for Hebrews 5:8 “Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered.” We have in Christ the most perfect example of obedience towards the will of the Father. Even though He was specifically set apart and begotten by God as the Son, whereas we are all adopted by the Father, He still suffered as we did. He still lived His life on earth as a human being that was tempted and tried. Though He did not fall to His temptations, He was still made to suffer condemnation as if He had sinned. The interesting thing of note for me about this verse is that Christ “learned obedience through what He suffered.” Why would Christ need to learn anything if He has divine omniscience? The word for “learned” here means “to understand by experience.” So if we modify the verse in this new light, we now understand that Christ understood obedience to the will of God by experiencing suffering. It never ceases to amaze me that Christ went to such great lengths to m

IBS Application for Psalms 17:15 “As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with Your likeness.” David was a man who understood a vital truth about walking through life as a Christian before Christianity had properly entered the world. In this prayer, and in this one sentence, he makes a declaration that challenges much of what the world has to say about what contentment looks like. Worldly contentment, as he points out just prior to this verse, can only be found in life on earth. There is nothing for anyone living in the world beyond the point of physical death. He also says that their portion is found in treasure and in leaving the abundance which they have sought to attain in life to their children. But this seems to me like it would only lead to an unfulfilling cycle of seeking that which is temporal, rather than that which is eternal. Worldly contentment isn’t contentment at all; it’s all about seeking more and more witho

IBS Application for Philippians 4:11 “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” Paul’s walk with Christ is inspiring to me. I know that I will probably never achieve the level of trust he had in Christ’s ability to provide for him, but I still think that it’s something to aspire to. In this verse and the section it belongs to, he demonstrates a confidence in Christ’s provision to the Philippians. He starts the section by rejoicing at the fact that they all have experienced some degree of concern for his situation, despite their inability to help him. But, as he states in this verse and later on, he needs no help beyond that which Christ grants him. His contentment in this situation comes from the fact that he’s been in many tense and worrisome scenarios, but has discovered the “secret” to being content despite whatever evil may come. It comes through strength in Christ, who enables Paul to be able to endure a

IBS Application for Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake You.’” This verse carries with it a truth that is always relevant to any believer’s walk. We ought not to worry about our present situation, because God provides comfort to those in need. Not earthly comfort, but heavenly comfort, which is so much better than any comfort that the flesh seeks. In the beginning of 2 Corinthians, Paul makes mention of a time in which he and some other disciples with him underwent an incredible amount of persecution. He states that it was so bad that he and the others thought they would die and that they were ready to die. But God allowed him to pass through it without coming to harm, and He gave Paul the strength and the will to keep going in spite of the danger he faced. We have the same God watching over us. The same God that delivered Israel from Egypt, the same God that deliv

IBS Application for Luke 3:14 “Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what shall we do?’ And He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.’” It was difficult for me to come up with a good application for today’s verse. But this morning, I figured out what God was trying to tell me through it. Seeing as how the comparison was made between us as an Ignite class and a S.E.A.L. team, it became clear to me that this verse may hold some relevance to our time here, fulfilling the mission that God has set before us. I think it would be prudent to look at this verse in conjunction with yesterday’s verse and its context in 1 Timothy. We see here in the context of this verse that John the Baptist is warning and advising many of the people he was baptizing about what they should do in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. He warned them to start repenting of their sins and to start living lives that produce goo

IBS Application for 1 Timothy 6:6-8 “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” When I first took a look at this verse in context with the rest of the section, I didn’t find it particularly relevant to me. It’s not that I haven’t had instances in which I’ve thought to use God and the Word for selfish gain; I’ve fallen into that trap before. But that hasn’t been a big struggle for me. Or so I thought. As I sat pondering this passage, God slowly began to reveal to me in my heart that I do struggle with contentment. He showed me that I do try to use the godliness He’s built me up with for gain, but not in the manner that Paul is talking about here. And in a different way, it is still selfish. I found out that in trying to do things on my own, I try to use what aspects of godliness I’ve been granted to accomplish what I’v

IBS Application for Hebrews 6:12 “...so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” There’s a lot that I want to say about this one verse. It feels like this is yet another lesson that God is trying to teach me at the end of this week, to top off the emotional and spiritual highs and lows of yesterday. I know that not everyone knows what exactly happened to me yesterday, so I’d like to elaborate on that a bit before I get into what I believe God is saying to me in this verse. I came under heavy attack by the Accuser yesterday. He began making me aware of all the stupid little things I was doing wrong throughout the day. It was bad enough that *I* started to beat myself down over it; he didn’t have to do anything on his own at that point except point out my sin. I beat myself up over every little thing, until I felt like there was no way I could ever measure up and I wondered if God would be able to use me at a