6:54 AM After a week off I’m eager to get back to campus and work harder on my craft than ever before. In his book Your Mind Matters, John Stott writes, “Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service. If we do not use the mind God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality and cut ourselves off from many of the riches of God’s grace.”
But then he adds:
At the same time, knowledge is given us to be used, to lead us to higher worship, greater faith, deeper holiness, better service. What we need is not less knowledge but more knowledge, so long as we act on it.
(March 6, 2021) 6:10 AM Who’s work is it? It is yours or is it God’s? Already in our study of Philippians we’re having to ask this question. Paul has just thanked God for the Philippians’ participation in the gospel from the first day until now (1:5). That’s something they had done. But in the very next verse he attributes that work to God: “I am sure that God, who began this good work among you, will carry it on until it is finished.” In 2:12, Paul commands the church to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. But notice: they are to work out what God works in: “For God is the one at work among you both to give you the desire and the ability to do what pleases him.”
So, there’s our part and there’s God’s part. This is a constant theme in Paul’s writings. In Eph. 4:1 he turns from exposition to exhortation, from the indicative to the imperative, from what God has done in the past to what the Ephesians must do in the here-and-now, from doctrine to duty, from brilliant theology to mundane everyday living.
All this is simply to illustrate the great truth of the New Covenant: for the Christian, obedience is both required and enabled. “What the Law could not do, because it was weakened through the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his Son, who came in the likeness of flesh, to do away with sin. He did this so that the righteous requirements of the Law might be fulfilled in us, those who live not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3).
In the end, it’s always a matter of God working out what he has already put in. He helped Paul. He helped the Philippians. And he will help you as well, my friend.
This is why ever since I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and the love you have for God’s people everywhere, I have never stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you wisdom to see clearly and really understand who Christ is and what he has done for you. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can see something of the future he has called you to share (Eph. 1:15-18).
“Your hearts will be flooded with light.” This is a wonderful promise of God! Do you realize that because you belong to Jesus, God has granted you the ability to know him and understand his word regardless of your education? Remember, when you open the Bible, you’re studying the very words of God. His words are more than mere human words. Therefore Bible study is much more than an intellectual exercise. No matter how much you read the Bible, if you don’t have the Spirit guiding you into truth, Scripture will never benefit your life. But praise God – he hasn’t left us without help!
When you begin your Bible time this morning, make sure you begin it with prayer. Many blunders of interpretation would never have been made if we had prayed as much in advance as we pined after the damage was already done. So before you open your Bible, ask God to bless you. Just pray a simple little prayer like:
God, thank you so much for your word. May your Holy Spirit reveal the truth to me today. Not yesterday, not last year, but today.
