Day of Praise

Tues, 03/21/17, "Day of Praise"

I pulled this one from the archives because I met another person over the weekend who said "Hey! I'm doing the best I can!" I encouraged them to move from HOPING that they've done enough to KNOWING that Jesus has already done enough to have peace with God and the best life with God now and forever. It's that simple. 

Through faith both in the person of Jesus, that he is the sinless Son of God, and also in the work of Jesus, that his death on the cross was to wipe away your sin and mine, you can have assurance that he will come into your heart, if you invite him in. And because when Jesus comes into your heart, he opens up your spiritual arteries for living water to flow through, then Holy Spirit will come in too, if you invite him! 

Have you invited Jesus to personally come into your heart? Until you do, nothing will change in your life. But if you call on him, "Lord, Jesus!" and invite him in, "Come into my heart! I want a new life today!" then your life will change forever. And a whole new adventure of following him will begin for you as you follow the lead of Holy Spirit. 

Believe. Invite. Follow. 

It's that simple!

Spread the word. Here's the devotional. 

"Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not seek justice. They do not promote the case of the fatherless; they do not defend the just cause of the poor." - Jeremiah 5:27-28

The Bible prophet Jeremiah preached for years and didn't have a single convert. Almost 3,000 years later, has anything changed?

Three times in chapter 31 alone, Jeremiah speaks of new things that God promises to do in the lives of people. So why didn't everyone come running and listen to all the prophet was sent to say?

Well, that's just it. People don't want to hear "all that a prophet was sent to say."

Jesus died for our sin. Part of our sin is believing that "I'm doing the best I can, and that should be enough."

But in today's verses, Jeremiah is God's instrument to say that our "evil deeds have no limit" because it includes the things we don't do, like "they do not seek justice. They do not promote the case of the fatherless; they do not defend the just cause of the poor."

Nobody wants to hear this because we're all pushing back and saying, "Hey! I'm doing the best I can!"

But there are two things that we really need to take away from these verses.

First, faith! We need the reminder that we can never do enough to be pleasing in God's sight. Martin Luther asked, "When have I done enough?" The only answer that he found in the Bible and that also gave peace to his soul was this--"Only Jesus, like us in every way, except he had no sin, can do enough. And what Jesus has done gets credited to us when we put our faith in him." 

God calls this the righteousness of faith. It's peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ. 

Second, love! The other thing that we really need to take away from today's verses is that, having peace with God through faith in Jesus, we are called to stop and not push back long enough to ask, "Is there something more I could be doing to 'seek justice, promote the case of the fatherless, defend the just cause of the poor'?"

Do we even care?

Care. That would be a good start, knowing that's what God, through Jesus, has done for us. 

Faith and love. It's that simple. Spread the word. Spread the love. 

Praise God!