Romans 8:28

Verse of the Day: Romans 8:28

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28 

As Christians, we have all struggled and gone through trials.  And I am sure we all have probably asked why we need to go through this.  A fair question, however, we must accept these times when they come.  God has reasons for everything He does and everything He allows.  It may be for our benefit, or it may be for another’s.

Francis Schaeffer once said the following, and I am paraphrasing.  ‘Too often we ask God to deliver us from a trial, when we should be praying that God will bring us through the trial.’  Persevering through will make us stronger and able to come through even more.

However, it could be for the benefit of another.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:3-4 the following, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

What a blessing we can be to so many if we keep this in mind.

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries, Inc.

Matthew 21:28

Verse of the Day Devotion Matthew 21:28  

“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.'” – Matthew 21:28

Today we will look at the Parable of the Two Sons, the first of three parables, in sequence, that depict God’s indictment and sentence of the present Jewish Leadership, unless they realize their errors and turn to the truth. Jesus does not reject Israel as a whole, only the current leadership, which has rejected him. The contrast is not between Jews and Gentiles but rather between those who reject and those who accept Jesus.  Here is this parable as found in Matthew’s gospel.

“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, Son, go work today in the vineyard. And he answered and said, I will, sir’; and he did not go. And he came to the second and said the same thing. But he answered and said, I will not; yet he afterward regretted it and went. Which of the two did the will of his father?  They said, The latter.  Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you that the tax-gatherers and harlots will get into the kingdom of God before you.  For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-gatherers and harlots did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.” Matthew 21:28-32.

This parable starts by introducing a man who has two sons. There are several things that need to be done, so he goes to one of his sons and says, “Son, go work today in the vineyard.” Matthew 21:28a. The son tells his father he will go out and work, but then does not.  He then goes to his second son and says the same thing, and he tells his father no, he would not go, but later regrets his decision and ultimately goes out and does what his father asked.  Both sons give opposite answers, but later do the contrary of what they told their father.

In this parable, Jesus is addressing the Jewish officials who continue to refuse to accept His divine authority, or to acknowledge John’s prophetic ministry.  “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax-gatherers and harlots did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.” Matthew 21:32.  What Jesus was saying here was that the most notorious of sinners, tax collectors and harlots, will get into heaven before they will. This does not mean that ethical considerations do not apply and that the worst of sinners keep on with the worst of their sins in the kingdom. It means that sinners like outcasts could respond to the message of the kingdom much more readily than sinners whose sins were cast in the conventional mode that brought no rebuke from the religious establishment.  As long as there was no rebuke from the Jewish leadership, then they believed there was no problem.

God has called us to do His work just as the father called his sons to do his will. Are we like the son who said ‘yes’ but did not carry through, or like the one who said ‘no’ but then repents and does it?  Many times, people promise to do things for God, or have every intention of doing them at the time but fail to because something else came up and was raised to priority one, over and above what God called us to. Like the son who ultimately disobeyed, some promise but do not perform it as they promised and so are rejected by God. Like the son who ultimately obeyed, some rebel but later submit and so are accepted.  The Jewish leadership would not accept Jesus as the promised Messiah because He did not fit the mold they believed the Messiah would follow, even though John laid out clearly who Jesus was. 

I want to close this with a quote from the Theologian Adam Clarke. “It is very difficult to get a worldly minded and self-righteous man brought to Christ. Examples signify little to him. Urge the example of an eminent saint, he is discouraged at it. Show him a profligate sinner converted to God, him he is ashamed to own and follow; and, as to the conduct of the generality of the followers of Christ, it is not striking enough to impress him. John, and Christ, and the apostles preach; but, to multitudes, all is in vain.”

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries. 

Colossians 1:10

Verse of the Day Devotion:  Colossians 1:10 

“So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” – Colossians 1:10 

The idea in our focus verse is that Christians should walk in a manner that pleases God.  It seems that pagans followed this and had the idea inscribed throughout the provinces of Asia. F.F. Bruce in his commentary on Colossians wrote the following, “If pagans appreciated the importance of rendering worship which was worthy of the deities whose votaries (a person, such as one devoted to the worship of their god, who has made vows of dedication to religious service) they were, much more should Christians render the spiritual service of obedient lives to the living and true God and to His Son Jesus Christ.”  Our hearts, as Christians, should be focused on pleasing the one who gave His life for us, that we might be saved and receive eternal life with God. 

As our verse above says, we must strive to please the Lord in all things.  This does not mean, as obviously stated, that we do this in certain cases, such as during church services or fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  These are the easy things.  What he is saying is in all things, including when we are joking around with friends or going out with them for an evening.  We are to be pleasing to the Lord when in Church, but also during all other times as well.  We must constantly strive to stay away from those things that dishonor God and focus on those things that bear fruit for Him.  I have seen many instances where several Christians have come together and the conversation has drifted to subjects that are improper and should never be discussed; jokes being told that involve indecent activities or words.  And there is to be no weighing of the activities, ensuring that the good stuff outweigh the bad stuff. 

Also, it says that we are to bear fruit in every good work.  John wrote that the way to bear good fruit is to abide in Christ, and Him in you.  “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”  John 15:4-5.  If Jesus abides in us, and we listen to Him, Colossians 1:10 becomes a regular thing in our lives.  And a couple more verses down, we read this, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” John 15:8.  So, by combining the verses, we see that if we walk in a manner that is worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all ways and  bearing much fruit, then we will glorify our Father in Heaven.  And by this we “prove to be Jesus’ disciple.   

And one final thought.  By living a life that pleases God in full view of the lost in our times, we can be a witness of the reality of Christianity and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Let us say we are in church and a visitor comes in and sees us praying, singing to God and lifting our hands in worship.  Then a couple days later they observe us in a situation where cursing and acting in ways that are not pleasing to God.  Will this affect them?  Probably, but not in a positive way.  They would probably think we do not believe what we say we do, for we do not live it outside of the church.  By these actions, we may have turned someone away from accepting Christ, and I am very confident that God would not be pleased with that.  It is absolutely important that we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord 100% of the time; no matter where we are or who we are with.  For if we are not, than how can we bear good fruit?  And if someone sees us acting unchristian like, how can they believe our message? 

So, I want to encourage us all, as Paul lays out so clearly, to  walk in a manner that is pleasing to God, bearing much good fruit, in all respects.  People watch us, especially those who are looking for reality in what we profess in both our words and actions.  When we walk in this manner, God is pleased with us because we are bearing much fruit.  But we cannot do this if God is not in us, helping us bear much fruit for Him.  For in Him, we are “strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:11-14.   

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries. 

Psalm 19:1

Verse of the Day Devotion: Psalm 19:1  

“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” – Psalm 19:1     

One of the most beautiful things I enjoy looking at is a starry sky on a cloudless night.  I look up and see the many lights that fill the night sky and ponder just how many are there.  The vast majority of these ‘lights’ are stars that are relatively close to our planet.  Let us look at a few things.  Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second.  Our sun is approximately 93 million miles away.  It is so far, it takes approximately 499 seconds, or 8.32 minutes for its light to reach earth.  Whatever happens at the sun takes 8 minutes for us to see it. 

Now, our closest star, aside from the sun, is Proxima Centauri.  In contrast to the sun where the light takes 8.32 minutes to reach the earth, it takes approximately 4.23 years for light from the nearest star to reach the earth.  And according to universetoday.com, there are at most 8,479 stars visible from earth.  Going even farther, there are around 10,000 galaxies visible, each with millions of stars in each,  in just one image, using the Hubble Ultra Deep Field telescope.  According to NASA on the website imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov, the closest galaxy to our milky way is some 25,000 light years away.  These are astonishing numbers.  It takes light approximately 25,000 years to reach earth. And this is the closest galaxy.   Just this alone shows the vastness of the universe.  And it is understood that the universe extends far beyond our ability to even view the outer regions of its existence. 

Many scientists believe that all matter has either existed eternally, or that it came into existence from  nothing.  These are the only possibilities aside from being a creation of God.  For nothing to create something does not make sense since change only happens based on an outside event.  And this event would have required something to trigger it, therefore it had to exist prior to what was the cause of its creation.   And, if it has always existed, it would have run out of energy and it would have died at some point, also in eternity past.

Therefore, this universe had to have been created by something that existed prior to the universe.  And it was, by an eternal God who created it for us.  And when we examine this universe, and we see  the immense size of it, the incredible order of this amazing universe, and the beauty as we look out into it from this single planet called earth.  As His word says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Genesis 1:1-2.  And after having created the heavens and the earth, He brought order and life on the earth, and finally, at the end, man.  (Read Genesis chapters 1-2.)  How can we look at this, His creation, and not see God and His glory in it? 

William Funkhouser MDiv, ThD, Founder and President of True Devotion Ministries.