NOTE: I am spending some time at our youth camp
this week and will share a few devotions from others. Today’s is from Pastor Joe McKeever that I
met several years ago. He is an artist,
leader and preacher. I believe you will
be blessed by some of his writing. Today’s
original post can be found at THIS
LINK.
The coach
walks up and down the sideline in front of his players.
“Get your
heads up! All of you! Take those stupid towels off your head!
Let’s show some courage around here! The game is not over yet.
You’re not defeated until you quit fighting. Lift up your heads!
Look like champions!”
The
disciples had returned from a trial run in which they had practiced preaching
the gospel of Jesus. Since the time would come when Jesus would be absent
and they would be doing this “for real,” the Lord wanted them to get a taste of
what to expect.
They
returned sky high. “Lord! It was wonderful! We saw miracles.
Lives changed. People healed. It was great!”
Jesus
agreed. “You’re right. In fact, I saw Satan fall like lightning
from heaven.”
“However,”
He said, “I do not want you rejoicing because of such.”
“Do not
rejoice because the spirits are subject to you. Rejoice because your names are
written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
It wasn’t
that He didn’t want them joyful and excited. He loves overflowing praise
and exuberance in His children.
He just
wants it based on something more substantial than the latest results.
The Lord
knew what the disciples were going to find out. The days would come when they
would return empty-handed from their preaching missions, their evangelistic
trips, their revivals and door-to-door visitations, and their overseas
outreach.
To be sure,
there would be times of great successes and glorious testimonies. But at other
times, they would return empty-handed, with no glowing stories, no big numbers,
no sparkling testimonies of victories. Sometimes they would do well to
get out with their lives, and sometimes they didn’t even manage that.
If their
joy resulted from impressive victories and big numbers, it would
be constantly fluctuating. Sometimes they would be happy in the Lord
and overflowing with praise, and at other times, their spirits would be
dragging, their hope vanished.
The Lord
Jesus wants none of that.
He wants His
children joyful from beginning to end. “In Thy presence there is fullness of
joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy….” (Galatians 5:22). “These things
I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be
full” (John 15:11).
Joy. There
it is. Joy is the constant refrain of Scripture.
C. S. Lewis
famously said, “Joy is the business of heaven.”
God’s word
is consistent on this subject.
“Rejoice in
the Lord always. And again I say rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).
“Rejoice
always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will
of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).
Hours before
He was arrested and went to the cross, Jesus told the disciples, “In the world
you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world”
(John 16:33).
He’s about
to go to the cross and experience the worst thing imaginable, something so
horrible we can only imagine, a prospect that caused His body to sweat
drops of blood. And yet, look at Him here, cheering up the disciples.
The plain
fact of the matter is the Lord wants His children always believing and trusting
and knowing the important things are settled and everything else is all right.
We are “more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
No hanging
heads. No towels draped over our sorry heads to disguise our disappointment and
hide our tears.
“Lift up
your heads! Your redemption draweth night!” is how the psalmist put it.
Rejoicing
“because your names are written in heaven” means a thousand things, these
among them…..
–Your
salvation is secure.
–Your hope
is steadfast.
–Your future
is settled.
–Your faith
is well placed.
— Your focus
is upward and eternal.
–Your
troubles are temporary.
–Your joy is
constant.
–God’s
promises are sure and certain.
–Jesus’ word
is dependable.
–God’s enemy
(and yours) is out of luck.
–You will
live and die with a smile on your face. People will come away from
you saying, “He’s either a nut or he knows something.”
Stay with
me a moment longer, please.
Do not
miss the implications of the Lord choosing as the basis of your joy that “your
names are written in heaven.”
Wishing to
anchor our joy to something more dependable and more constant than the
up-and-down vicissitudes of this life, wanting to secure our joy forever, and
intending to settle the matter for all time, Jesus tied it to our salvation.
The strong
implications are that you are saved forever.
Implications,
nothing! It’s there, plain as the nose on your face. (Is
“explication” a word? He wasn’t implying anything, but was as explicit as
it’s possible to get!)
If we
can be saved one day and lose it the next, then get it back the next
day, then He chose the wrong figure of speech. The way some of God’s
children believe about the temporariness of salvation–that “one little sin can
send your soul to hell,” as I’ve heard it put–makes you wonder what it will
take for them to start believing in Jesus and quit taking counsel of their
fears.
The Lord
Jesus actually thought that the born-again would live forever. “They shall
never perish.” “Neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand.” “I
give unto them eternal life.” “So shall we ever be with the Lord.”
We pitiful
humans. We resist believing that salvation is of grace and keep wanting
our works to play the starring role in this divine production.
Or, we play a little mind game with ourselves that says: I know we are saved by
grace and Jesus paid it all, but if I sin after being saved, I’m lost
again.
If that’s
true, if one sin or a certain number of sins undoes what God did in Christ as a
result of Calvary, then no one is secure in Christ, no salvation is settled, no
forgiveness is permanent, and we are all in big trouble, and Jesus’ death
settled nothing.
It’s time to
start believing Jesus, people.
I love what
some woman told Pastor Tim Keller upon realizing the gospel of grace for the
first time….
“I know
why I want my morality to save me. If I’m saved by my good works, then
like a taxpayer, I have rights. I’ve paid into the system and God owed me
a good and decent life, and there is a limit to what the Father can ask of me.
But if I’m saved by sheer grace, then my life belongs to the Father, He owes me
nothing, and there is no limit to what He can ask of me.”
Sheer
grace. That’s it.
Sheer grace
or we are in a mess of trouble, children.
But,
rejoice. Your names are written in Heaven. In blood, actually. The blood
of Christ.
“Thanks be
to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (I Corinthians
15:57).
Now, let
us go forth in joy.
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