O Blessed Sinner

IBS Application for Ephesians 2:4-7 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” I know that this passage is a bit longer than usual, but it spoke to me as we studied it together this week as a team. We have been listening to Bible teachings by Pastor Joe Focht the past couple of weeks. The one we’re currently going through is his teachings on is Ephesians, obviously. His insights into the structure and the message Paul was trying to communicate have brought the beauty of the message of this letter into a new light for me. The first three verses of this chapter serve to explain where we were spiritually before Christ came on the

IBS Application for Psalms 34:21-22 “Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems the life of His servants; none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.” I found this passage was particularly convicting for me. I read it in my devotions and it has stuck with me since I read it. It’s something that I really need to hear. Please understand that I find it convicting not because I find myself to be one who hates the righteous, but because I am a servant of the Lord. I would have just used verse 22 here, were it not for a problem that I still struggle to let God take care of: my own self-condemning sinful nature. As I’ve said before in previous posts, I struggle with not beating myself up every time that I fail to be the righteous man that I’m supposed to be. And I notice when that happens daily, so you can imagine how often I condemn myself over it. But, as I’ve also stated before, this is arrogance, becau

IBS Application for Psalms 32:1-4 “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah” From David’s own experience, it would seem that silence before the Lord when a response is required is a path to suffering. But in confession and repentance, there is blessing and respite from the pain and weight of sin. This makes sense, and I will attempt to explain why using my own experience with this issue. I have attempted to keep sins hidden from those around me, the Lord included, that I was ashamed to admit out loud, partly because I feel in those moments as though admitting them would make them true of me, despite the fact that they were already true, and that even if ordinary

IBS Application for Proverbs 12:1 “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.” “The man who learns to know the good of discipline and correction will have a true understanding of knowledge; but whoever cannot accept correction is a stubborn fool,” is how I think I’d say this. There is a great truth in this Proverb, one that I think every man and woman ought to learn. Failing to recognize failure or refusing to be corrected when we get something wrong makes one foolish, but all who can learn to accept correction is wise. Correction and discipline exist for our benefit. God Himself wouldn’t correct us if He didn’t love us. Sin is itself a failure to hit the mark and live up to the standard of righteousness. Although Jesus paid the price for our sin, He still expects us to learn from our errors so that we may take up His own righteousness for the sake of our salvation. Think about why we are charged with keeping each other accountable, s

IBS Application for 2 Timothy 2:2 “...and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” We, as Class 14 of Ignite, have been truly blessed to be a part of the Lord’s plan to build his kingdom. We’ve not quite finished our training, and the Lord is still working in us, but the reality of what we’re getting ready to do our in the field is setting in. We’re all about to step out into the battlefield, where the real spiritual warfare is happening. And like good soldiers, we need to be able to remain strong and steadfast both in the heat of battle and to not become entangled in the civilian pursuits of the world. As I write this, we’ve all just received our commission, just last night, in fact. We have the mission to go start making disciples of the nations. That much was stated by Christ prior to His ascension. But what does that mean for us? “What you have heard from me in the presence of many wi

IBS Application for Proverbs 9:9 “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.” To the righteous and the wise, further instruction and teaching is not a bad thing. According to this Proverb, it is a very good thing for them. The wise become wiser, and the righteous increase in learning. To Christians, who are called to exercise both wisdom and righteousness in our daily walk with God, this truth seems to me like it would be essential for our growth. We ought not to hate the idea of being taught or of studying the Word. It all serves to make us wiser and to increase our knowledge about who God is. I feel that it is too often that a believer finds the idea of learning more about Scripture a pointless pursuit to them specifically, because they think that the knowledge and wisdom they’ve already gained is a sufficient understanding of who God is, or worse yet, that they believe that they know all there is

IBS Application for Luke 2:46 “After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” It is astonishing to me to reread this passage and see just how far Jesus had gone in humbling Himself in becoming a human being like us. In becoming a servant, He submitted Himself to the will of the Father, and therefore submitted Himself to the world’s authorities. In this case, He sat and learned from the teachers in the temple. Though He would not have needed to necessarily learn Scripture, seeing as how He was God in the flesh, He still went through life as we did, learning the same way that we do. Although, if the rest of the passage is indicative of anything, it would be that Jesus, even as a child, may have taught the teachers more than they taught Him! But the thing that I think fascinated me the most about this passage is the fact that Jesus asked questions. Again, He didn’t have to do so necessarily, yet He did.