Wisdom

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. James 1:5

This is a promise to claim and act upon! A practical, much-needed promise for a thousand situations of life, big and little.

If you need wisdom, just ask God.   God is a generous God and he will give you wisdom. What a promise!

You run into a stumbling block in your marriage because you and your wife see things so differently. Ask God for wisdom.

Your sixth-grader is struggling with a difficult teacher, who doesn’t seem to treat your child fairly. What should you do? Ask God for wisdom.

You have a problem with one of your employees. He has a great heart and everyone likes him, but he just doesn’t do a good job with his work. How can you help him improve? Are you hurting the company? Ask God for wisdom.

You have a splendid ministry opportunity at church. It fits your passions and gifts so well. But you have been over-scheduled lately. Do you accept the ministry position? Ask God for wisdom.

In all of these situations, and so many more, claim this promise and come to God for wisdom. Come to him for little things and come to him for big things. Come repeatedly and come joyfully. Come expectantly and come tirelessly. For God has promised to give you wisdom.

© 2014 WoodsEdge Community Church. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced for any non-commercial use.

Love of God

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10

The love of God is the foundation of the entire spiritual life. Not our love for God. That’s very important since that’s the greatest commandment. But underneath our love for God is God’s love for us. More foundational than our love for God is God’s love for us. Our love for God is simply a response to God’s prior and initiating love for us.

We will not go higher, or deeper, or further, than our experience of God’s love for us.

Moreover, when it comes to God’s love, the greatest example of that love and the proof of that love is found in the cross of Christ. That God would send his own Son to the planet to become a man and then die on a cross, bearing our sin, is the greatest proof that God cares about us. God cares about us more than we could possibly fathom.

John White, a psychiatrist and writer, penned passionate words about the cross and God’s love:

“He welcomes you because his Son died for you. His breast has always yearned for you and his arms yearned to enfold you. Christ’s death has now made it possible for the Father to do what he wanted to do all along. So come boldly – sprinkled by blood. Let him enfold you to the warmth of his bosom while his hot tears wash over your body.

“Hot tears? Does the expression sound irreverent or sentimental? I have no words that do justice to the love that led to the death of God’s Son. The universe ought to have stopped in its tracks, and I, for one, am sorry it didn’t. No more heinous crime was ever committed against God nor greater act of love consummated on behalf of the criminal. Are you blasphemous enough to suppose that your dead works, your feeble efforts can add to the finished work of a dying Savior? ‘It is finished!’ he cried. Completed. Done. Forever ended. He crashed through the gates of hell, set prisoners free, abolished death and burst in new life from the tomb. All to set you free from sin and open the way for you to run into the loving arms of God.” ¹

¹ John White, The Fight, 88.

© 2014 WoodsEdge Community Church. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced for any non-commercial use.

Freedom

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

Christ has won your freedom!

Christ came to set you free. He died to set you free. He rose to set you free. He is all about freedom. Your freedom.

He liberates you from your sin. He liberates you from the penalty of sin forever, from the hell of eternal separation from God. He liberates you from the power of sin over you, so that you have to give way to sin.

Christ frees you from the prison of anger and unforgiveness. He sets you free from fear and worry. He sets you free from religion and rulekeeping.

However, we can forfeit our freedom. We can lapse back into slavery and bondage of all kinds. We can listen to the lies of our enemy who would enslave us.

But we must not! If Christ died to set us free, if he gave his own life to set us free, how vital it is that we stand firm and say “No!” to slavery in all its forms.

Dwight Edwards writes eloquently about the power of freedom in the New Testament world, and what it can mean to us:

We do well to remember that the word freedom meant much more to the original readers of the New Testament than it does to us. Over half the population in the Roman world was enslaved. Aristotle’s view was widely held: “A slave is a living tool, just as a tool is an inanimate slave.”

Freedom in Christ is a spiritually intoxicating wine, a breathtaking flight into space, a soul-thrilling escape from enemy territory. It’s the spiritual exhilaration of having one’s soul set free for the high adventure of a God-enabled assault upon life. ¹

¹ Dwight Edwards, Revolution Within, 160.

© 2014 WoodsEdge Community Church. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced for any non-commercial use.

Most Disobeyed Verse

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. James 5:14

There are plenty of candidates in the Bible for “Most Disobeyed Verse.” Just in the Book of James, I think of James 1:2: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” Or there’s James 1:19: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” And plenty of others!

But at the top of the list I would put James 5:14: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” Many churches don’t do this. Most Christians don’t obey this.

Why not? Is it a hassle to call for the elders? Is it a bit awkward to smear oil on someone’s forehead? Do we not believe that God still heals people? Or do we not really believe in the power of prayer?

Perhaps all of these are involved. But God’s command stands clear. Do it. If there is a sickness, then call for the elders, God’s representatives to shepherd the body. Let them pray over you, anointing you with oil, as a symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Who knows what God might do when we obey him no matter what!

© 2014 WoodsEdge Community Church. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced for any non-commercial use.

Boast in the Cross

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14

Our only boast is in the cross of Christ. Not in our goodness, not in our devotion, not in our efforts, not in our determination, not in our merits, not in our cleverness, not in our Bible knowledge, not in our obedience, not in anything. Our only boast is the cross of Christ. For on that cross, our debt was paid. On that cross, our sins were expunged. On that cross, our salvation was won.

Every single spiritual blessing in our life was made possible because Christ our Lord died on a cross and bore our sin. Of course we boast only in the cross.

John Piper passionately proclaims of the cross:

"Christ is the glory of God. His blood-soaked cross is the blazing center of that glory. By it he bought for us every blessing – temporal and eternal. And we don’t deserve any. He bought them all. Because of Christ’s cross, God’s elect are destined to be sons of God. Because of his cross all guilt is removed, and sins are forgiven, and perfect righteousness is imputed to us, and the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Spirit, and we are being conformed to the image of Christ.

Therefore, every enjoyment in this life and the next that is not idolatry is a tribute to the infinite value of the cross of Christ – the burning center of the glory of God. And thus a cross-centered, cross-exalting, cross-saturated life is a God-glorifying life – the only God-glorifying life. All others are wasted." ¹

¹ John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life

© 2014 WoodsEdge Community Church. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced for any non-commercial use.