Learning From Adversity
You did not so learn Christ!
Ephesians 4:20 RSV
Alexander MacLaren, a distinguished Manchester preacher (1826–1910), wrote, “What disturbs us in this world is not trouble, but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates and wears away our lives is not in external things but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed by eternal things.”
To resent and resist God’s disciplining hand is to miss one of the greatest spiritual blessings we Christians can enjoy this side of heaven.
Whatever it is—aggravations, trouble, adversity, irritations, opposition—we haven’t “learned Christ” until we have discovered that God’s grace is sufficient for every test.
Though Job suffered as few men have, he never lost sight of God’s presence with him in the midst of suffering. He emerged victorious on the other side of sorrow and testing because he never allowed resentment to cloud his relationship with God.
The attitude which can overcome resentment is expressed by the writer to the Hebrews: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (12:11 NIV).
Our Father and our God, teach me Your righteousness, whether through blessings or burdens. Give me an understanding heart, an attitude of service, a longing for purity. Discipline me when I need it, Father, out of Your great parental love. Teach me humility and patience in suffering. Through Christ. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
The Love That Passes Knowledge
. . . That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may . . . know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17–19 RSV
Behind the love of God lies His omniscience—His ability to “know and understand all.” Omniscience is that quality of God which is His alone. God possesses infinite knowledge and an awareness which is uniquely His. At all times, even in the midst of any type of suffering, I can realize that He knows, loves, watches, understands, and, more than that, He has a purpose.
As a boy I grew up in the South. My idea of the ocean was so small that the first time I saw the Atlantic I couldn’t comprehend that any little lake could be so big! The vastness of the ocean cannot be understood until it is seen. This is the same with God’s love. It passes knowledge. Until you actually experience it, no one can describe its wonders to you.
A good illustration of this is a story my wife told me about a little boy in China who saw a man selling cherries; and when he saw the fruit, his eyes filled with longing. But he had no money with which to buy cherries.
The kindly seller asked the boy, “Do you want some cherries?” And the little boy said that he did.
The seller said, “Hold our your hands.” But the little boy didn’t hold out his hands. The seller said again, “Hold out your hands,” but again the little boy would not. The kind seller reached down, took the child’s hands, and filled them with two handfuls of cherries.
Later, the boy’s grandmother heard of the incident and asked, “Why didn’t you hold out your hands when he asked you to?” And the little boy answered, “His hands are bigger than mine!”
God’s hands also are bigger than ours!
Our Father and our God, You are so great and powerful! I cannot begin to understand the vastness of Your knowledge or grace or love. I can only be amazed and overjoyed at the depth of Your care and concern for me. Thank You, Lord, for showering Your blessings and joys on me. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
He Is Our Peace
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us . . . to make in himself of twain one new man . . . that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.
Ephesians 2:14–16
Outside the work of the cross, there is bitterness, intolerance, sedition, ill will, prejudice, lust, greed, and hatred. Within the efficacy of the cross, there is love and fellowship, new life and new brotherhood. The only human hope for lasting peace lies at the cross of Christ, where all men, whatever their nationality or race, can become a new brotherhood.
Recently a university professor said, “There are two things that will never be solved—the problems of race and war.” I say that these and all other problems can be solved, but only at the cross. The cross of Christ is not only the basis of our peace and hope; but it is also the means of our eternal salvation. The object of the cross is not only a full and free pardon; it is also a changed life, lived in fellowship with God. No wonder Paul said two thousand years ago, “We preach Christ crucified.” This is the message for the world today. This is the message of hope and peace and brotherhood. This is what the world calls foolishness but what God has been pleased to call wisdom.
The poet John Greenleaf Whittier put it well when he wrote:
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our striving cease;
Take from our soul the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
He is our peace!
Our Father and our God, I lay my burdens down at the cross. And I pick up in their place the bundle of peace and joy You have for me. Help me, Father, to relax in Your quiet peace and to develop a calmness, even in the midst of trouble, that is evident to all. Thank You for Jesus, who delivered Your peace to earth and in whose name I pray. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Centering On The Cross
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ . . . [reconciling] us both to God in one body through the cross.
Ephesians 2:13, 16 RSV
The fact of the death of Jesus Christ is the very heart of Christianity. The sacrificial cross of Christ is the secret of Christianity’s survival through all the ages and the hope of its victory in the ages to come.
The cross is more than an example. It is more than a system of ethics. It is the mighty act of God’s justice and love. God is saying to the whole world, “I love you. I am willing to forgive your sins.” God is saying to all of those who are filled with guilt today, “Your sins are forgiven because of the cross.” God is saying to all those who are lonely today, “Behold, I am with you until the end of the age” (cf. Matthew 28:20). Every person reading these words is guilty of sin, and there is no way to remove that stain of guilt except by the sacrifice of Christ.
In Westminster Abbey there is a memorial tablet erected by the British government in memory of Major John André, with whom Benedict Arnold negotiated for the surrender of the fortress of West Point and who was hanged as a spy on October 2, 1780. It was a case where the man who ought to have been hung escaped and the man who was caught in a strange series of circumstances was hung.
André was still in his twenties. He was a gifted writer. Just before his execution he wrote a poem entitled, “Hail, Sovereign Love,” in which the great truth of the atonement, Christ’s substitution for the sinner, was gloriously told; he described in this poem how his own soul was for a time too proud to seek Christ. However, there came a time when André was convinced of his sin, and he went to the cross and found a glorious and wonderful peace.
I read about a clergyman some time ago who was conducting a communion service. Because he no longer believed in the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross for our sins, he distributed flowers to the congregation instead of the bread and the wine.
The idea of the atonement was repugnant to him, so he gave flowers as a substitute. But there is no substitute for Christ and Him crucified, no substitute for the rugged and bloodstained cross.
Our Father and our God, You have substituted Your precious Son on the cross for me. He took my personal sins to that tree and hung there in agony in my place. Forgive me, O merciful Father. Find in me a pure heart, and save me through the blood of Christ. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Blood For The Battle
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.
Ephesians 1:7
We are involved in a spiritual conflict. This is a battle between the forces of God and the forces of Satan. We must choose sides.
The Bible warns us about being taken in by the evil of this cosmos. Satan’s lies are cleverly mixed with truth. When he tempted Christ, he was convincingly logical and even quoted Scripture. So the Bible commands that Christians make a clean break with all the evils of the world and that we be separated from them. The apostle Paul said, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:17).
Jesus ate with publicans and sinners (see Mark 2:16). Nearly everyone He associated with was an outcast. But His relationship with them was not purely social; it was redemptive.
Now, we are not to get our worlds mixed up at this point. This is where the confusion lies. God meant that we are not to mingle with the world, but we are to witness to the world. We are to love the world of men whom God loves. We are to weep with those who weep (Romans 13:15), suffer with those who suffer, and identify ourselves with the poor, the sick, and the needy.
This then is our problem: to associate with and love those who are involved in the world without being contaminated, influenced, or swayed by them. This distinction can only be achieved by a close walk with Christ, by constant prayer, and by seeking the Holy Spirit’s leadership every hour of the day. God has provided us the power to resist the world and be separated from it, and it is ours to appropriate that power every hour of our lives.
We are in the world, but the world is not to be in us. It is good for a ship to be in the sea, but bad when the sea gets into the ship. As our Lord prayed, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil” (John 17:15).
Our Father and our God, I pray for Your constant vigil on my behalf. Protect me from the evil influences of my world. Help me to walk with Jesus and be led daily by the Holy Spirit toward being in the world but not of it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Be On Speaking Terms With Him
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.
Galatians 6:14
The Bible reveals that God has a plan for every life, and that if we live in constant fellowship with Him, He will direct and lead us in the fulfillment of this plan.
Many of us have God’s plan second or third at best. However, if you have substituted the good for the best, do not despair. Wherever you are at this moment, yield your life unconditionally to God, and He can still make it a thing of beauty and an honor to His name.
The Bible says, “Be ye transformed . . . that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). God does not reveal His plan through fortune-tellers, soothsayers, and workers of hocus-pocus. His will is reserved for those who have trusted Christ for salvation. He shares His secrets only with those who are redeemed and transformed.
You cannot know the will of God for your life unless you first come to the cross and confess that you are a sinner and receive Christ as Lord and Savior. If you want the perfect plan that God has for your life, you will have to go by the way of Calvary to get it. It is only through Christ that we can be on speaking terms with God and know God’s plan for our lives.
Our Father and our God, take my life, redeem it, and transform it into something beautiful to glorify and worship You. I bring my broken life to the foot of the cross and leave it there to be repaired and renewed by You. Bless me, Father, through Your Son and my Savior, Jesus, my Lord. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Really Living
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
Galatians 5:22–23
The moment you come to Christ, the Spirit of God brings the life of God into you and you begin to live. For the first time you begin to live with a capital L. There’s a spring in your step and a joy in your soul and a peace in your heart, and life has taken on a new outlook.
There’s a whole new direction to your life because the Spirit of God has given to you the very life of God, and God is an eternal God—that means you’ll live as long as God lives.
The Bible also teaches us that the Spirit of God produces the fruit of the Spirit. Now these nine clusters of fruit are to characterize the life of every Christ-born child of God. But what do we find? We find in the average so-called Christian today the very opposite.
Everyone before he comes to Christ is dominated by one nature—the “old man,” which is also called the “flesh,”—which controls your life. You’re controlled by your ego; you’re controlled by yourself. The moment you receive Christ as your Savior, that self is put down, and Christ is put on the throne in your life and the Spirit of God dominates your life.
However, self is still there—sometimes hidden, sometimes quiet, sometimes secondary—waiting his opportunity and his chance to attack the citadel of your soul and take control again.
As a Christian you have the willpower to yield either to the flesh and live a fleshly, carnal life; or you have the power to yield to the Spirit, to live a Spirit-filled life. Our life is an up-and-down experience. God never meant it to be that way. God meant the Christian life to be on the highest possible plane at all times, bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
Our Father and our God, thank You for the joy You bring to my life. Every day I put away my “old self ” again and choose to follow You. Please help me keep my commitment to You in a dynamic and effective way. I love You, Lord, and I pledge my heart to You. Through Christ, my Lord. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Peace: The Fruit Of The Spirit
The fruit of the Spirit is . . . peace.
Galatians 5:22
Peace carries with it the idea of unity, completeness, rest, ease, and security. In the Old Testament the word was shalom. Many times when I meet Jewish friends I greet them with “Shalom.” And often, when I greet my Arab friends I use a similar term that they use for peace, “salam.”
Recently as I watched the televised report of passengers disembarking from a hijacked plane, I saw terror, horror, and fear on their faces. But one woman had a little child in her arms, calmly sleeping through it all. Peace in the midst of turmoil.
Isaiah said, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3). This is the picture of any Christian who stands alone on life’s spiritual battlefield, by faith garrisoned round about with God’s holy weapons, and in command of the situation. Such a man is not troubled about the future, for he knows who holds the key to the future. He does not tremble on the rock, for he knows who made the rock. He does not doubt, for he knows the One who erases all doubt.
When you and I yield to worry, we deny our God the right to lead us in confidence and peace. Only the Holy Spirit can give us peace in the midst of the storms of restlessness and despair. We should not grieve our Guide by indulging in worry or paying undue attention to self.
What are you worried about? Why?
Our Father and our God, I rest in Your peace. Help me focus my mind always on You and know Your great calmness in my soul. Give me the quiet confidence to face life day by day, come what may, just as Your Son, Jesus, did in the midst of His enemies. Through Him I pray. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
The Walk Of The Willing
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Galatians 5:16
To paraphrase Galatians 5:16—“Walk by means of the Spirit.” In Romans 8:14 Paul wrote, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
To walk in the Spirit is a challenging and inspiring exercise, for it combines activity with relaxation. To walk means to place one foot in front of the other. If you stop doing this, you are no longer walking—you are standing still. Walking always implies movement, progress, and direction.
Living for Christ is a day-to-day going-on with Him. It is a continuous dependence upon the Spirit of God. It is believing in His faithfulness. You cannot live the Christian life by yourself. The Holy Spirit must live in you and express Himself through you.
Sin will no longer rule or dominate you if you are allowing the Holy Spirit to live Christ’s life through you. It is living by faith, living by trust, living in dependence upon God.
If we look to our own resources, our own strength, or our own ability as Peter did when he walked on the water, we will fail.
The first key for usefulness and power for Christians today is humility. The second is the realization that sanctification is only in Christ. The third is reliance on the Holy Spirit.
Realize that God is in control. Habakkuk the prophet cried out to God and said, “O God, why are these terrible evils coming upon the world?” God said, “Habakkuk, don’t be discouraged. I am working a work in your day; if I told you what it is, you would not believe it” (Habakkuk 1:5).
God is at work in the midst of crisis. In the midst of the problems, pessimism, and frustrations of our day, God is doing His own work. Let us realize that there are certain things we cannot do. Let us be faithful in the things He has called us to do.
Our Father and our God, I want to walk with You from here throughout eternity. Hold my hand and keep me by Your side. Remind me often that You are in control of life and that I have nothing to fear when I am with You. Keep me moving forward in my spiritual growth. And please bless me with the wisdom to always be faithful through Jesus Christ, my Lord. In His name. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
The Mark Of A Christian
All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Galatians 5:14
When men turn to God, God gives them agape love—and then they love their neighbor no matter what the color of his skin, no matter what his circumstances. This is the love that God gives as a gift, and it is produced in the heart by the Holy Spirit who lives there.
The Christian is to love fellow Christians. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Do we have love one to another? Do you know what the apostle Paul said about it in 1 Corinthians 13? He said that even if he had the ability to speak like an angel but didn’t have love, his words would be empty and meaningless—like a noisy cymbal.
Think of being the greatest orator in all the universe! Speaking with a thousand tongues in a thousand languages with the eloquence of the greatest speakers of all time! Paul said unless we have love, agape love—the divine love that only God can give—we are only “sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.”
Suppose I understand the Bible, have the gift of preaching, the gift of prophecy, and am the greatest preacher who ever lived. Paul said unless I have love “it profiteth me nothing.” Suppose I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, read the Bible every day, carry it under my arm every day, believe in all the creeds, unless I have love, Paul said I am nothing.
Suppose I have such faith that I could remove mountains. You would say, “What great faith that is!” That’s nothing, unless I love.
Suppose I give all the money that I have to charity. You would say I was a great man—a Christian man. But Paul said unless I have love it is nothing. Do you have this love? Without Jesus Christ in your heart, you can’t have this love. You can’t produce this love except with the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s the reason why you must receive Christ, and when you do He gives you the power and the strength, through the Holy Spirit, to produce this love.
George Sweeting says, “Life minus love equals nothing!”
Our Father and our God, give me a heart of love too. Pour Your love into my heart until it runs over and touches the lives of those around me. Use me, Father, as a channel of Your love to the lost, the lonely, the abused, and the sick. Help me to show the love of Christ, in whose name I pray. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Salvation Of Society
We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
Galatians 5:5
The whole nature of individual salvation rests squarely on the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Scripture says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).
But the Bible also teaches that the salvation of society—the reordering of man’s social injustice, war, poverty, and disease—will be taken out of man’s hands someday. We’re not going to achieve all this by education, evolution, politics, technology, military power, or science. Nor will it be achieved by legislation in the congresses and parliaments of nations so as to produce such benevolent acts of man that all hate, evil, and sin will be abolished.
The salvation of society will come about by the powers and forces released by the apocalyptic return of Jesus Christ. It will come through the Kingdom of God in its principles of righteousness. It will be the prophesied fulfillment of redemption applied to every phase of human life and national existence. This is our hope, and it should influence everything we do and everything we think every day of our lives.
Our Father and our God, reach down in compassion and touch our society. Lead us in repentance, and give us courage to turn from materialism and all other false gods and forms of evil and return to You. Forgive us for abandoning You, Lord. And thank You for saving us through the life-giving blood of Jesus! Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
God’s Children
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:26
As God’s children, we are His dependents. The Bible says, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13).
Dependent children spend little time worrying about meals, clothing, and shelter. They assume, and they have a right to, that all will be provided by their parents.
Jesus said, “Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? . . . But seek ye first the kingdom of God . . . and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:31, 33).
Because God is responsible for our welfare, we are told to cast all our care upon Him, for He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). Because we are dependent upon God, Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:1). God says, “I’ll take the burden—don’t give it a thought—leave it to Me.”
Children are not backward about asking for things. They would not be normal if they did not boldly make their needs known.
God has said to His children, “Therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). God is keenly aware that we are dependent upon Him for life’s necessities. It was for that reason that Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).
What is troubling you today? Is your heart burdened because of some problem which threatens to overcome you? Are you filled with anxiety and worry about some problem, wondering what will happen? Listen: as a child of God through faith in Christ, you can turn these over to Christ, knowing that He loves you and is able to help you.
Our Father and our God, I need Your help. Please take this burden of mine . . . Do not let me take the burden back from You, Father, but let me rest in the knowledge that You are handling it. I thank You that You love me enough to carry my problems. I love You, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
God Came Down
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
Jesus is not only the Christ, he is also “God, our Lord and Savior” (Titus 2:13). This is a staggering, almost incomprehensible truth: God Himself has come down on this planet in the Person of His only Son. The incarnation and the full Deity of Jesus are the cornerstones of the Christian faith. Jesus Christ was not just a great teacher or a holy religious leader. He was God Himself in human flesh—fully God and fully man.
Jesus Himself gave frequent witness to his uniqueness and divine nature. To His opponents He declared, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). They immediately recognized this as a clear claim to divinity and tried to stone Him for blasphemy. On another occasion Jesus stated, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), and again His enemies tried to stone Him “because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33). Furthermore, He demonstrated the power to do things that only God can do, such as forgive sins (Mark 2:1–12). The charge brought against Him at His trial was that “he made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7); and when asked if He was the Son of God, he replied, “You are right in saying I am” (Luke 22:70 NIV).
Irenaeus said it well when he wrote, “The Word of God, Jesus Christ, on account of his great love for mankind, became what we are in order to make us what he is himself.” What a sobering—and exhilarating—thought that should be!
Our Father and our God, my little mind cannot comprehend Your greatness. My sinful self cannot understand Your purity. My humanity cannot grasp Your divinity. And yet I can be like You through my relationship with Jesus Christ, Your Son. Thank You, Father, for Your amazing gift of life through Christ, in whom I pray. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
The Present Evil World
[Jesus] who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.
Galatians 1:4
In Luke 18, Jesus told of the self-righteous Pharisee who said, “God, I thank you that I am not like all other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector” (v. 11). The Pharisee kidded himself into thinking he was something, when he was not. But the tax collector, whom the Pharisee looked upon with scorn, saw himself as he was, and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (v. 13). Jesus said, “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).
How can we get our values right? How can our warped judgment be straightened out? Some tell us that education is the answer to these questions. Prove to people that crime doesn’t pay (they say) . . . that illicit sex is psychologically harmful . . . that alcohol and drugs are harmful to our minds and bodies . . . and they’ll wake up and stop doing them. But experience repeatedly demonstrates that this doesn’t work. Programs of social and personal reform are launched continually. Are they the answer to evil?
Others say that science is the answer. Science, supposedly, can make a clean bomb or a harmless cigarette. It can cope with the problems of drugs. Science, they say, can tap the brain of man and alter his desires.
But the Bible, which has withstood the test of time, tells us a different story. It says that we are possessed of a sinful, fallen nature, which wars against us, that seeks to destroy us. Paul said, “I find this law at work [in me]: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Romans 7:21). Evil is present to cleverly disguise itself as good. Evil is present to control and deceive us. We are not at peace with ourselves or with God. That is what the cross of Christ is all about: to reconcile us to God and to give us a new nature.
Our Father and our God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I truly want to do what is right and good in Your eyes, but evil is always there with me. I am weak and sinful, O Lord. Yet I thank You for Jesus, who will deliver us in triumph over sin, the devil, and evil. Thank You for the cross, which reconciles me to You through Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Our Omnipotent Helper
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.
2 Corinthians 13:14
God the Holy Spirit is equal with the Son and with the Father in every respect. The Bible teaches that He is coequal with God the Father and coequal with God the Son. The Bible also teaches that the Holy Spirit is a Person. He is never to be referred to as “it.” He is not just an agent, He is not just an influence. He is a mighty Person, the Holy Spirit of God.
The Bible tells us that He is omnipotent. That means that He has all power.
The Bible tells us that He is omnipresent. That means that He is everywhere at the same time.
The Bible tells us that He is omniscient. That means that He has all knowledge. He knows everything that we do—He watches us. “His eye is on the sparrow,” and if God the Spirit is watching the sparrow, how much more He is watching us every moment.
He sees the thoughts and intents of our hearts. He delves into our minds, into the things we think, into the intents of our souls. He knows all about us. He knows everything. The Bible says that everything we do He writes down in a book, and someday it shall be brought out as evidence at the great Judgment of God.
The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is eternal. The Bible tells us that He is holy. He is referred to in the New Testament alone one hundred times as the Holy Spirit—absolute holiness, absolute purity, absolute righteousness.
What should this mean to me? With the seventeenth-century Anglican bishop Jeremy Taylor, I can say, “It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his Helper is omnipotent.”
Our Father and our God, I know You are awesome, all-powerful, all-knowing, and always present with me. Your Spirit indwells me and guides me in the Way to eternal life. With Your help, and through Christ my Lord, I can be more than a conqueror in life. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
You Can Leap Walls
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. . . . No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:37, 44 NIV
Conversion is that change in the mind of a sinner in which he turns on the one hand from sin and on the other hand to Christ. Conversion is the human side of the tremendous transformation that takes place in the divinely wrought “new birth,” or “regeneration.” It is simply man’s turning from sin to Christ.
The Scripture teaches that God turns men to Himself, but men are also exhorted to turn themselves to God. God is represented as the author of the new heart and the new spirit, yet men are commanded to make for themselves a new heart and a new spirit. It is the old paradox of grace and free will.
Simon Peter could not become a disciple until Jesus called him and said, “Follow me.” But others heard the same call and refused it or put it off. One said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Another one said, “Let me first say farewell to those at my home.” These men refused Christ’s call.
This combination of divine calling and the human responsibility of accepting God’s grace runs throughout the Bible and characterizes all God’s dealings with men.
The Bible confronts us with both our independent moral responsibility and our total dependence upon God to save us—a mystery, yet true.
In the picturesque words of Psalm 18:29, David says, “By my God I can leap over a wall” (RSV). A man can jump over some barriers by his own will and effort but some walls are so high that they need more than this.
The Psalmist knew such walls. Those could be leaped only with the help of God. God does not lift a man over. God helps a man when he takes the leap.
Our Father and our God, thank You for seeing my helplessness and reaching down to convict me of my sin and draw me to Christ. I give You all the glory for my salvation and seek to live by Your grace in my life every day. In Christ’s name, Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Salvation Is Free, Not Cheap
Three times I was beaten with rods, since I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
2 Corinthians 11:25–30 NIV
For Paul the Christian life was one of suffering. The same could be said of a multitude of Christ’s followers, many of whom were killed for their faith. So when Christ said time after time that one must “deny himself and take up his cross and follow me,” He was indicating that it is not easy to be His true follower. The apostle Paul warned, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12 NIV). He offers no cheap grace, no easy life. As someone has said, “Salvation is free but not cheap.”
Charles T. Studd was a famous sportsman in England, captain of the Cambridge XI cricket team. A century ago he gave away his vast wealth to needy causes and led the “Cambridge Seven” to China. His slogan was, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”
During the first decade of this century, Bill Borden left one of America’s greatest family fortunes to be a missionary in China. He only got as far as Egypt, where, still in his twenties, he died of typhoid fever. Before his death he said, “No reserves, no retreats, no regrets!”
Our Father and our God, Your Son left all the glories and wealth of heaven to die for me. Help me to leave materialism behind to follow Him with my whole heart. Give me contentment in whatever situation I find myself, whether poverty or wealth, sickness or health, persecution or peace. Build up my faith through Jesus Christ, in whom I pray. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010.
Life Eternal And Internal
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
2 Corinthians 9:15 NIV
Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness. Consciously or unconsciously, his inner being longs for both. There are times when man actually cries for them, even though in his restlessness, confusion, loneliness, fear, and pressures he may not know what he is crying for.
God heard the first cry for help, that cry for forgiveness, and answered it at Calvary. God sent His only Son into the world to die for our sins, so that we might be forgiven. This is a gift for us—God’s gift of salvation. This gift is a permanent legacy for everyone who truly admits he has “fallen short” and sinned. It is for everyone who reaches out and accepts God’s gift by receiving Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Paul calls it God’s “indescribable” gift.
But God also heard our second cry, that cry for goodness, and answered it at Pentecost. God does not want us to come to Christ by faith, and then lead a life of defeat, discouragement, and dissension. Rather, He wants to “fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power; in order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you” (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12 NASB).
To the great gift of forgiveness God adds also the great gift of the Holy Spirit. He is the source of power who meets our need to escape from the miserable weakness that grips us. He gives us the power to be truly good.
If we are to live a life of sanity in our modern world, if we wish to be men and women who can live victoriously, we need this two-sided gift God has offered us: first, the work of the Son of God for us; second, the work of the Spirit of God in us. In this way God has answered mankind’s two great cries: the cry for forgiveness and the cry for goodness.
As a friend of mine has said, “I need Jesus Christ for my eternal life, and the Holy Spirit of God for my internal life.” He might have added, “. . . so I can live my external life to the fullest.”
Our Father and our God, You are so much a part of me that I can’t identify where I end and You begin. I am nothing without You, Lord. You are in me, around me, and through me. I am Yours, and You are mine. Thank You for being with me forever. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
The Christ-Like Christian
Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
2 Corinthians 6:10 NIV
These words from the apostle Paul remind me of Amy Carmichael. Though bedridden as a result of an accident some twenty years before her death, and in almost constant pain, she continued to minister through her devotional writings and poetry. Her keen insight and her refreshingly spiritual writings revealed the depth of her walk with Christ. She remains a striking example of a Christian whose physical suffering enabled her to reflect the character of Christ. She lived a life of rejoicing in the midst of tribulation. Her face radiated the love of Christ, and her life epitomized the saintly stature the surrendered Christian can reach if he reacts to suffering by rejoicing in it.
During those years of physical pain, Amy Carmichael wrote the many books that have blessed untold thousands around the world. Without the “blessing” of being confined to her bed, she might have been too busy to write.
There is a story about Martin Luther going through a period of depression and discouragement. For days his long face graced the family table and dampened the family’s home life. One day his wife came to the breakfast table all dressed in black, as if she were going to a funeral service. When Martin asked her who had died, she replied, “Martin, the way you’ve been behaving lately, I thought God had died, so I came prepared to attend His funeral.”
Her gentle but effective rebuke drove straight to Luther’s heart, and as a result of that lesson the great Reformer resolved never again to allow worldly care, resentment, depression, discouragement, or frustration to defeat him. By God’s grace, he vowed, he would submit his life to the Savior and reflect His grace in a spirit of rejoicing, whatever came. With Paul he would shout, “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57 NIV).
When was the last time you praised God in the midst of despair? Don’t wait until you “feel like it” or you’ll never do it. Do it, and then you’ll feel like it!
Our Father and our God, I praise You for Your generosity and blessings. You have rained Your goodness down upon me, undeserving though I am. You have given me more than I can even imagine. Thank You, Father, for Your great love. Thank You especially for Christ, through whom I pray. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Jesus Took Our Judgement
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
2 Corinthians 5:21
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
ROMANS 8:1
The Bible says the judgment for sin that I deserved is already passed. Christ took my judgment on the cross. Every demand of the law has been met. The law was completely satisfied in the offering that Christ made of Himself for sins. “The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12).
The law had said, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). I deserved judgment and hell, but Christ took that judgment and hell for me. Christ Himself said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). No statement could be any plainer that the true believer in Jesus Christ shall not come into judgment. That judgment is past. “For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (Isaiah 38:17). God said through Jeremiah the prophet, “I will remember their sin no more” (31:34).
We shall never understand the extent of God’s love in Christ at the cross until we understand that we shall never have to stand before the judgment of God for our sins. Christ took our sins. He finished the work of redemption. I am not saved through any works or merit of my own. I have preached to thousands of people on every continent, but I shall not go to heaven because I am a preacher. I am going to heaven entirely on the merit of the work of Christ. I shall never stand at God’s judgment bar. That is all past.
Once while crossing the North Atlantic many years ago, I looked out my porthole when I got up in the morning and saw one of the blackest clouds I had ever seen. I was certain that we were in for a terrible storm. I ordered my breakfast sent to my room and spoke to the steward about the storm. He said, “Oh, we’ve already come through that storm. It’s behind us.”
If we are believers in Jesus Christ, we have already come through the storm of judgment. It happened at the cross.
Our Father and our God, I am completely humbled by the thought of Christ dying for me. I clasp Your grace and forgiveness to my heart with tears of gratitude. Your overwhelming love is more than I can comprehend. Thank You, Father, for the blessed gift of life eternal through Jesus Christ, my Lord. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).