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Secrets Are The Best!
Everyone loves a secret. Whisper a secret to a group of children, and immediately their eyes light up. However, children don’t have a corner on the secrets market. Adults love to hear secrets almost as much as children love to tell them.
God has secrets—boy, does He have secrets! As if we didn’t know this already, the Bible tells us so.“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)
When God came in the flesh in the person of Jesus, He revealed His secrets in a form mankind had never seen before. John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
Jesus revealed many secrets to his disciples. He even revealed explicit details about his upcoming death. Matthew 20:18-19, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
God even gave us a promise about His secrets: “For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7)
Every secret God wants us to know, He’s already revealed through his prophets. Just to make sure those of us living in this century would have access to those secrets, He had His prophets write them down.
So, you wanna know a secret? Just read His Word. There you’ll find the best-kept secrets!
Who I Am NOT
During an interview about Titus Ray, the main character in my Christian fiction series, I was asked to describe some of his personality traits. Instead, I explained what Titus is NOT.
He is NOT an extrovert. He is NOT a gun guy. He is NOT a family man.
By pinpointing what a person is NOT, a picture emerges about what a person is.
The apostle John does this in the Gospel of John. He says, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.” John 1:6-8.
Perhaps the most important attribute about John the Baptist was what he was NOT. He wasn’t the Messiah; He wasn’t the Light; He wasn’t our Savior. He had to reiterate this several times during his ministry. Every time he did so, he was able to tell people who he really was. He was a witness sent to point people to the real Savior, Jesus Christ.
There are other examples in Scripture of what people were NOT: Joseph was NOT an adulterous slave boy. David was NOT an intimidated shepherd. Daniel was NOT a cowered exile. Paul was NOT a timid follower of Christ.
How would you describe who you are NOT?
How you answer that question will enable you to see who you really are.
The NOT realization enabled John to know his role. He wasn’t the Light, but he was to tell about the Light.
Perhaps you are NOT a Sunday School teacher, but you can be a Sunday School member. Perhaps you are NOT a teacher of the Bible, but you can read the Bible. Perhaps you are NOT a prayer warrior, but you can pray.
“There was a man sent from God.” John 1:6. John was sent by God to be who he was; not someone he was NOT.
Discover who you are NOT, and you’ll discover who you are.
Waiting for the Blue Bar
If you would have asked me the moment I made my commitment to Christ if I loved the Lord, I would have said yes.
Now though, as I look back on it, it’s hard to measure that kind of love.
That’s because I know more about Him now, so I feel I love Him more. My relationship with Him now, as compared to when I first came into a relationship with Him, makes that initial claim of loving him seem as nothing.
I was thinking about this one day as I sat in front of my computer watching a new program get downloaded. A pop-up box dominated the screen with a line of text assuring me the process of downloading was taking place. Even though I wasn’t able to see it, I was supposed to believe it was going on in the background.
To help me visualize the progress of the download, a long bar appeared in the pop-up box. The bar was clear with no color showing. Because I’d done this before, I knew the moment the software elements were added to my hard drive, the bar would begin to fill up with blue. The colorization would begin on the left side and gradually make its way over to the right, culminating in a solid blue bar. Once that happened, the download was complete, and I was encouraged to begin using my new program.
How this blue download bar related to my thoughts about my love for Christ is easy to describe but hard to explain.
Picture the clear bar as the moment I accepted Him as my Savior. Then, picture the bar as completely filled in at some future moment in eternity when I shall know Him fully and love Him perfectly.
In this comparison, what kind of progress can I see on the blue bar right now? Practically none. Perhaps a little sliver of blue on the far left-hand side. Nothing more.
However, like the message on the pop-up box, God’s Word is continually reassuring me my life is being changed and the elements of my sanctification are being added. Though I may not see any progress, I must believe the message.
One day, Jesus promises His believers they’ll hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:23).
One day, the download will be complete, and we’ll be able to use our new program.
In the meantime, be patient and keep reading His Word, His Message of Hope.
Oh, gross!
Until recently, I never realized how gross the subject of purification could be. Then, I had to do some research about my refrigerator’s water filter, and I read about the stuff a water purifier is suppose to remove–things like cysts, radioactive particles, arsenic, bacteria, viruses, and chemicals.
I found myself getting a little sick just reading about the stuff.
The same week I was researching pure water, I read this from James 4:8, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind.”
God expects those who desire His presence in their lives to have their hearts pure, to be free from contaminants. However, pure hearts, like pure water, must go through a purification process before being pronounced clean. Like water from a dirty lake, our hearts don’t become pure on their own. Hearts must be cleansed by an outside source.
David, in Psalm 51:10, cried out to God for purification, “Create in me a clean heart, O God!” Only when we cry out to God for purification does the process of heart cleansing truly begin. Luke, writing in Acts 15:9, says God does His act of purification “by faith.”
Water purification occurs when I connect a water filter to a water source. Heart purification occurs when, by faith, I connect my desire for purity with the source of purity, God Himself.
Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Afraid of God?
The notion of being afraid of God seems foreign to those of us who view God as the Lover of our Soul, who sing of His blessings, and who trust Him with our eternal soul.
Yet, one can’t read the Bible without encountering the oft-repeated admonition to “fear the Lord.” Throughout the Old Testament, there are numerous examples of God’s children receiving a blessing because they fear God. Also, because of fearing God, they do what He commands them to do. (Genesis 42:18; Exodus 1:17; Exodus 18:21)
Fear of God is not just an Old Testament concept, though. Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Nevertheless, there are times in my life when I’ve struggled with the concept of what it means to fear God. That’s why, when I recently came across a definition of fearing God in Drew Dyck’s book, Yawning At Tigers: You Can’t Tame God, So Stop Trying, I spent time meditating on it.
Dyck says, “To fear the Lord is to be grounded in reality, to have an accurate view of God’s holy nature and his awesome power.”
Fearing God doesn’t mean we cower in His presence—like a dog who knows he’s displeased his master—nor does it mean we run and hide instead of joyfully approaching Him. Instead, we embrace the fear of God because we recognize His to-be-feared characteristics, such as His all-powerful wrath toward sin, His unending sovereignty, and His unapproachable holiness, are an accurate understanding of who God really is.
The fearfulness of God is a reality, even if we don’t like it very much.
Having a true picture of God is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
I live in Norman, Oklahoma. That means I know what’s it’s like to watch a mile-wide tornado approaching my city. It’s a fearful thing. However, if I’m hunkered down inside an indestructible storm shelter, I’m able to be in awe of the storm’s fierceness without fearing for my life.
We should fear God. We should be in awe of His wrath and His judgment. Yet, at the same time, we should have peace, knowing He is shielding us from wrath, sheltering us in His arms forever.