Category: Holiness - The Apologetics Blog

Sanctified

7/11/2014

1 Thessalonians 5:23a "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely."

We often hear the word "sanctified" brought up in church. But what does it truly mean to be sanctified? How does it apply to our lives outside the four walls of the church? These are important questions to ask if we are to truly be followers of Christ.

To be sanctified means that we are set apart for use by God. It is closely related to holiness. If we are sanctified we are taken away from secular use and made useful to God.This is important if we are to live the Christian life.

We cannot become sanctified by ourselves, however. However hard we may try, by ourselves we can only cover up those things that are undesirable to God. Yet God knows that these things are there. It is only when we turn these things over to God that we can be sanctified.

In the end, it is important for us to understand that we do not sanctify ourselves. God sanctifies His people by His grace. This is truly a blessing, as it allows us to be useful to God.

Believing The Promises

4/22/2014

Genesis 15:6 "Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness."

Stop and think about the promises that God has given us throughout Scripture. He has promised that those who come to Him for redemption through His Son would not be thrown out (John 6:37). He has promised us that He has good plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11). He has promised to give us rest if we come to Him (Matthew 11:28), and so many more.

How many of us have chosen to believe God? I am not talking about believing that He exists. Many who are reading this believe that God exists. When was the last time we stopped and trusted God's promises? Some may say that their circumstances are extreme. I would say that Abraham's circumstances were extreme, yet God made and kept His promises to Abraham. Abraham was not the only one with extreme circumstances. What about Moses? David? Daniel? Paul? Peter? John? They all faced what many of us would call extreme circumstances. Yet God kept His promises to each of them.

In the end, we have no excuse not to believe God. Today, we can choose to believe that God is faithful to keep His promises. This means changing our lives. However, we find that, after we have changed our lives for God, our lives are changed for the better, and to a degree more than anything that we could have done for ourselves. I challenge everyone who reads this to find one of God's promises in the Bible and choose to believe it.

Purpose, Meaning, Hope

4/13/2014

Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Scripture applies to all of us. It applies to the person who has never stepped foot in church as well as the person who was born in church. It applies to me and it applies to you. Although it may be difficult to swallow some of the teachings of Scripture, these teachings are still applicable to our lives. This includes this passage from Romans.

God did not only create Christians. He created those who have turned their backs on Him, as well. He loves them, and He loves us. He makes it rain on both the non-Christian and the Christian. As creatures of God, we have all sinned against God. We have gone our own way, and without our Creator, we have no purpose, no meaning, no hope. However, our Creator did give us purpose, meaning, and hope in the person of Jesus Christ.

When God sent Jesus to bear our punishment and rise from the dead, God formed the church and gave these followers of Jesus a purpose, namely to reach out to those still do not have any purpose, meaning or hope and telling them of God's love and His gift of eternal life available through Christ alone. In other words, God gave the church a purpose of finding the lost and bringing Jesus to them.

God also gave us meaning through Jesus Christ. Sin separated us from God and took away our purpose for living--to glorify God. It is impossible for an unholy people to perfectly glorify a holy God. We could praise Him and worship Him, but we could never truly glorify Him. However, when Jesus bore our sins, God reinstated our purpose. That is, through Jesus we can live holy lives, forgiven of our sins, glorifying God. We could not do this without Jesus.

Finally, God gave us hope through the person of Jesus. Jesus not only bore our sins, giving us purpose and meaning, but He also gave us hope of reconciliation with God. We can come to know God because of Jesus. No one else can do that. Christ will not force us to accept it. We must choose to accept it.

Considering Jesus

3/21/2014

Hebrews 3:1 "Therefore, holy brothers and companions in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession."

What do we base our decisions on? Do we often think about what we want? Do we think about what others want, or what would make us more popular with others? Do we think about what may be fun at the time? Or do we think about God?

The author of Hebrews addressed his audience in this epistle in a very direct manner. He makes it clear to all who read his epistle that we should consider Christ before every decision that we make.

The author of Hebrews also tells us why we should consider Jesus before each decision that we make. He identifies Jesus as our "apostle and high priest". The word "apostle" comes from a Greek word that means "one who is sent". Jesus Christ was sent by God to us.

The author of Hebrews also identifies Jesus Christ as our High Priest. In ancient Israel, the high priest was the one who was to offer the yearly sacrifice in the holy of holies for the forgiveness of the sins of the people. Looking at both of these terms, it is clear that the author of Hebrews was making the point to his audience that Jesus Christ was sent from God to offer the sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins.

This is the reason why we should consider Him before any decision that we make. No one else has ever been sent by God to be the sacrifice for our sins. No one else could have offered the sacrifice that Christ did. No one else could have offered salvation to any who believe. No one else could have shown the grace and compassion that Christ has shown to us. This is why He must be considered before any decision that we make. When we consider Him, the ultimate outcome will be good.

Doing Good

3/14/2014

1 Peter 3:17 "For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil."

The apostle Peter was writing to Christians who were scattered in various provinces and regions. In his first epistle he makes it clear that we are to live holy lives that please God. Part of this is doing what is good rather than what is evil.

Several times in Scripture, we are commanded to love. We are commanded to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27), as well as to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 19:19).

We must make a conscious choice to love God. Each and every day, we must wake up and give Him our best. It doesn't matter if it is a good day or a bad day. We have to choose to love God throughout every situation in life.

The same goes for loving our neighbors. When we love our neighbors, we seek only the best for them. We do not wish them any harm. We only try to do good for them. Sometimes, however, our neighbors will get upset at us for this. When this happens, we should not be upset. Rather, we must remember that God has an amazing ability to turn every situation around for His glory! We have no reason to worry.

We can be confident that, if we suffer for following Christ, God will receive the glory. He does not let His servants suffer in vain. In fact, He seeks only our best in everything. Even in our suffering we can be confident that God is in control.

Loving Our Brethren

3/6/2014

1 John 2:10 "The one who loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him."

When we think of loving others, who do we think of? Friends? Family? Coworkers? The lost? Church members? Our enemies? Although it is important that we choose to love all of these, we should also choose to love our Christian brethren.

It is vital that we, as believers in Christ, love other believers in Christ. First, if we do not love them, who will? The world is good at showing love to those from whom it benefits. However, if we have made ourselves foreigners to the world, the world will not desire to love us. The world cannot provide the type of love that Christ has commanded His followers to show to each other, anyway.

A Christian who chooses to love his or her brethren does not only step into a relationship with Christ at that moment. He or she must have already been a Christian in order to call his or her fellow Christian his or her brethren. The Christian who loves his or her brethren remains in the light. It is a constant thing, not something that passes.

As Christians, we are commanded to love those who Christ has already loved. We can rest assured that, even when it may seem difficult to love some of them, Christ has already given us the example by loving our brethren. Christ did not leave us without an example to follow.

When we choose to love our brethren, we are given this assurance: we will not become a stumbling block to our brother or sister. If we abide in love, we can only help our brethren, and ourselves, draw closer to God. It is a win-win.

Remain In Him

3/1/2014

1 John 2:28 "So now, little children, remain in Him, so that when He appears we may have boldness and not be ashamed before Him at His coming."

When you were a child, did you ever do something that you were afraid to tell your parents? Something like break a window? As a kid, were you ever afraid to show your parents your report card? Have you ever decided not to do a chore, and then hide it from your parents? All of us have probably done something like this at some time or another.

Why did we not want our parents to find out about our wrongdoing? Why did we not want to face them? The answer is simple, because if we brought this to our parents, we would have been ashamed. We knew we could have done better or should have done something different, but we did not do it.

John the apostle is here making a similar analogy. John encourages the readers of his epistle to remain in Christ. He encourages them to imitate Christ and to obey Him. He encourages his readers to live a life of obedience to Christ and love for God and neighbor. Here, John tells us why it is important that we live this way.

We should not live the same lifestyle that the world lives because, when Jesus returns, those who have lived such a lifestyle will be ashamed. When confronted with the holiness of God, we see how terrible sin really is. Those who live a lifestyle of obedience to Christ and love for God and neighbor will not be ashamed when Jesus returns. There is no reason to be ashamed of hearing, "Well done!"

Observing Light

2/19/2014

1 John 1:5b "God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him."

Let's take a minute to think about light and darkness for a moment. Have you ever stopped to think about what light does? It is fascinating.

Let's begin by defining terms. I think it would be fair to say that something is in light when darkness is absent. In other words, where light is present, darkness is absent. This is important to the analogy of God given by the apostle John in his first epistle. But what else do we know about light?

Light dispels darkness. Where light meets darkness, the light wins. The darkness goes away. I have never seen someone plug in a working lamp, put a brand new light bulb in it, and turn it on, and sit there in darkness. It does not happen. This is another point that we must observe.

What can we learn from these observations and the analogy that John the apostle gave us in his first epistle? We know that, just as darkness is absent where light is present, so where God is, sin is absent. Let me try to put it another way.

Just as light dispels darkness physically, so does God dispel darkness spiritually. Whenever God comes into our lives and we are living in a relationship with Him, sin gets expelled. This is no reason to say that we have not sinned, as we will see in a later devotional. However, this means that when Christ becomes part of our lives, our sins are forgiven.

Will we still struggle? Yes. We will fight to stay out of darkness for our entire life. What we do know, however, is that God's light will give us the strength we need to overcome the darkness. We cannot do it alone. We need His light in order to dispel the darkness in our lives. Without Him, it all falls apart.

Hearing And Keeping The Word

2/8/2014

Luke 11:28 "He said, 'Even more, those who hear the word of God and keep it are blessed!'"

Jesus was again teaching in front of a crowd. A woman in the crowd screamed at Jesus that his mother was blessed, because she bore him and nursed him. Jesus had a great response.

Jesus responded that those who both hear and keep the word of God are also blessed! This is great news for those of us who give 100% in trying to keep God's word. This is bad news for those who do not give 100% in trying to keep God's word.

Note that both hearing the word of God and keeping it are in play here. We cannot only be hearers of the word (James 1:22). And how are those who have never heard God's word to keep God's word!? Both hearing and keeping God's word are important.

Hearing God's word does not simply mean listening to a sermon. Hearing God's word involves Bible study. It involves reading the Scriptures. It involves a daily devotion to God's word. We must maintain a daily habit of reading Scripture. It is fairly easy to read a chapter or two each morning, and think on it for the rest of the day.

Keeping God's word does not mean having a Bible in your house. Do not get me wrong, it is great to have a Bible handy at all times. This provides more opportunities for studying God's word. However, keeping God's word means being obedient to God. It means turning to Jesus, Who was completely obedient to God, and imitating Him. It means turning from our sins and embracing God. It means obeying both the written word and the Word-made-flesh (Jesus). Today, we can all make a commitment to not only hear (read, study, and listen to) God's word and keep it. When we do this, we can truly make an impact on our world, which so desperately needs Jesus.

A Message For The Lost

2/7/2014

Isaiah 53:6 "We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the LORD has punished Him for the iniquity of us all."

In life, we have a desire to do things our own way. I am guilty of this. You are guilty of this. Everyone you know is guilty of this. However, this is not the way things are supposed to be.

Human beings also have a tendency to mess things up. Even though we desire to do things our way, sometimes this does not work out the way that we intended it to. We may intend for good to come from something, but the outcome may be just the opposite. We may intend to help someone, but instead we hurt them. This is part of doing things our way.

Isaiah the prophet described mankind as sheep that have gone astray. When we try to go on our own, and do our own thing, this is exactly what happens. When God created the world, we were all part of God's flock. Then, Adam, the first man, sinned. Since then, mankind has continued to sin. Our own selfish desires have scattered us, and caused us to run away from God. However, God had a plan.

God was not going to let His flock go. Instead, He offered redemption to those who accept it. He will not make us come to Him. God does not force us to do anything that we do not want to do. Rather, He holds His arms open for us to return, if we so desire. He has left the choice up to us.

However, God has made only one way back to Him. This way back to Him is through His Son. God loved you, and me, so much that He sent His only Son to take the punishment for our rebellion. This is how much God loves us.

God allowed Jesus to take the punishment for our sins so that we can be restored to a right relationship with Him. This is the greatest gift that mankind has ever received--God's Son as our Savior! Now, the choice is up to us. We can either accept Him, or we can reject Him. We can call Him our Lord, or we can spit in His face.

I choose to accept Jesus. The question I have here today is this: If you do not know Jesus today, do you want to know Him? You can, and He already knows you. If you would like to know Jesus, just ask Him. Ask Him for forgiveness for your sins, and He will forgive you. I know this, and you can, too!

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me directly. My email is travis@candidapologetics.com.