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Baker Publishing Group - John Macarthur

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104 pages

English

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31-Day Devotional from Bestselling Author and Bible Teacher John MacArthurIn the busyness and trials of life, it's easy to drift away from the Savior. We may continue to go to church and even read the Scriptures and pray, but we can still lose our first love. Christ commended the church in Ephesus for their works and for their intolerance of false doctrine yet admonished them to remember and return to their first love--him. In the same way, our outward religiosity can mask an inner lack of love for our Savior.In this 31-day devotional, John MacArthur takes readers down a biblically prescribed path as they rediscover who Christ is, what he has done, and how they must respond. Each entry will move readers from understanding to application to reflection and prayer, with a goal of rekindling their first love for Christ. Makes a thoughtful gift for any believer.

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Philosophie et théologie

Christian theology

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	18 octobre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493405480
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Title Page
Copyright Page
© 1995, 2016 by John MacArthur
Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2016
Adapted from A Simple Christianity , published by Regal Books, 2009.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-0548-0
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations labeled NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Contents
Cover 1
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Preface 7
Day 1: First Love 9
Day 2: No Mere Man 16
Day 3: Christ and the Father 22
Day 4: The Preeminent One 28
Day 5: Chosen in Christ 34
Day 6: The Blessings of Our Salvation 40
Day 7: God’s Plan from Eternity Past 46
Day 8: The God-Man 52
Day 9: In the Likeness of Men 58
Day 10: Even Death on a Cross 64
Day 11: Our Desperate Need 70
Day 12: Our Loving Substitute 77
Day 13: Rescued through Redemption 83
Day 14: Righteous through Justification 89
Day 15: Inadequate Sacrifices 95
Day 16: The Perfect Sacrifice 101
Day 17: The One Eternal Sacrifice 107
Day 18: The Name above All Names 113
Day 19: Our Risen Lord 120
Day 20: Our King Takes His Throne 126
Day 21: Every Knee and Every Tongue 132
Day 22: Our Sympathetic High Priest 138
Day 23: Our Advocate with the Father 145
Day 24: Following Our Lord in Suffering 151
Day 25: Our Lord’s Response to Suffering 157
Day 26: Love and Obedience 164
Day 27: When We Fail 170
Day 28: Returning to Love 176
Day 29: In Pursuit of Our First Love 183
Day 30: Focusing on the Finish 190
Day 31: Training for the Race 196
Notes 202
About the Author 205
Back Ads 207
Back Cover 210
Preface
The Lord Jesus said, “If God were your Father, you would love Me” (John 8:42).
Thus did the divine Son of God identify the distinguishing mark of the children of God—love for the Lord Jesus. On the other hand, Scripture declares that souls doomed to judgment are cursed—because they do not love the Lord (see 1 Cor. 16:22).
The final benediction at the very end of Ephesians declares, “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love” (Eph. 6:24), a love that is unfailing and immortal.
When Peter was caught and confronted in his disobedience by the Lord Jesus Himself, his gracious Savior asked him only one question—three times: “Do you love Me?” The dejected disciple answered that he did love the Lord, and the Lord knew his love was real because He knew Peter’s heart (see John 21:15–17). This love for the risen Christ possesses the soul of every true Christian—as Peter said for all of us, “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him” (1 Pet. 1:8).
The believer’s love for the Savior surpasses all loves on the human level, even the natural love of one’s own life. This divine love, placed in the heart of every true believer by the Holy Spirit, is not merely a feeling. It is manifest in obedience.
“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” . . . Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:21, 23)
Love for the Lord Jesus is the defining reality in the life of every true Christian. But the fire of the first love for the Lord can grow cold and diminish the believer’s power and blessing. This thirty-one-day journey is designed to keep your love for Christ increasing for your joy and His glory.
Day 1 First Love
I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first.
Revelation 2:4–5
Loving the Lord Jesus Christ is what the Christian life is all about. If you are a Christian, you love Christ. Unfortunately your love is subject to fluctuation in its intensity. It takes a focused commitment on your part to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
There is perhaps no better illustration of this waning intensity than what happened to the church at Ephesus, to whom Christ said, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Rev. 2:4). The disease that plagued that congregation infects many contemporary churches. Instead of cultivating a deep and intimate relationship with Christ, many believers ignore Him, falling victim to the culture and turning to empty, worldly pursuits.
I am so concerned that love for Christ not grow cold in the lives of Christians that several times throughout my ministry at Grace Community Church I have preached a message of warning from Revelation 2:1–7. This passage crystallizes the danger of becoming so busy in activity for Christ that one forgets the necessity of maintaining a rich, loving relationship with Him. The church at Ephesus had a great beginning. The apostle Paul invested three years of his life teaching the Ephesian believers the whole counsel of God (see Acts 20:27, 31). Our Lord even commended the members for their service:
I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. . . . You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (Rev. 2:2–3, 6)
This was a noble group of people who worked hard and persevered through difficulty. They established holiness and righteousness as their standard. Because their doctrine was solid, they recognized false apostles and avoided their influence.
In spite of their success, they missed the most important thing—they left their first love. Their labor of passion and fervor became cold, orthodox, and mechanical. They left the heart out of their service—all their activity had become perfunctory. They believed and did all the right things but did so coldly.
Like Ephesus, the nation of Israel had been holy to the Lord at first. The Lord said to the people, “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after Me in the wilderness, through a land not sown” (Jer. 2:2). But then He said, “What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me?” (v. 5).
The honeymoon ended in Israel; it ended in Ephesus as well. Love turned cold is the forerunner of spiritual apathy, which then leads to a love for the world, compromise with evil, corruption, death, and finally judgment.
Can you imagine how you would feel if your husband or wife suddenly announced to you they didn’t love you anymore yet they still planned to live with you and sleep with you, and nothing would change? Likewise you would never dream of telling the Lord you didn’t love Him like you once did but you still planned to come to church to serve, sing, give, and worship Him. May I suggest, however, that you may be doing just that, only you don’t realize it. That’s the danger of spiritual apathy.
The apostle Paul never forgot the value of his relationship to Christ:
Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ. (Phil. 3:7–8)
Knowing Christ was his passion. For him nothing in life could capture his allegiance and devotion as much as Christ—not even his Hebrew heritage.
Ironically, Paul wanted to elicit the same love and devotion from the Ephesian believers. That’s why he reminded them of their resources in Christ (see Eph. 1). We can’t be sure how much they depended on Christ, but it must not have been enough, since our Lord had to command them, “Therefore remember from where you have fallen” (Rev. 2:5). A new generation had now risen in Ephesus that held to its strong tradition but not to an intense love for Christ. It’s possible some were not even believers. Puritan Thomas Vincent recognized what a lack of love to Christ represents:
The life of Christianity consists very much in our love to Christ. Without love to Christ, we are as much without spiritual life as a carcass when the soul is fled from it is without natural life. Faith without love to Christ is a dead faith, and a Christian without love to Christ is a dead Christian, dead in sins and trespasses. Without love to Christ we may have the name of Christians, but we are wholly without the nature. We may have the form of godliness, but are wholly without the power. 1
On the other hand, a true Christian is evident by his or her consuming love for Christ. Vincent continued:
If He has their love, their desires will be chiefly after Him. Their delights will be chiefly in Him; their hopes and expectations will be chiefly from Him. . . . Love will engage and employ for Him all the powers and faculties of their souls; their thoughts will be brought into captivity and obedience unto Him; their understandings will be employed in seeking and finding out His truths; their memories will be receptacles to retain them. . . .
All their s