Web Chapel

Category: Guest Contributor

  • God is Merciful

    Hebrews 8:12  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

    This New Covenant does not require continual sacrifices to deal with sin because the ultimate sacrifice has been made. In Hebrews 8.13 the writer refers to the Lord Jesus who has made the first covenant obsolete. He writes of the old covenant which is,” growing old is ready to disappear”.

    This New Covenant was made by Christ Himself signed in His own Blood. It came to the Jew first than to the Greek or Gentile, (Rom1.16).  God so loved the world that all who believe in the Lord Jesus will be saved and have eternal life. (John 3.16).

    I am sure all of us think on this often.  To think of the One who created everything would be interested in every person walking this earth, including me, is hard to fathom. God has shown us through His Son, what true love is, His grace and mercy that we experience each day.

    We are all sinners and we have been given the gift that the writer to Hebrews is sharing with these Jewish believers in Christ. The very words of God: I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”  Our sin has been forgiven and we have become a member of His family, with the promise of Eternal life!

    Think back on that time when you put your trust in the Lord Jesus as your Savior. The sin that we carried from birth, the sin of the man Adam, has been dealt with by the man, the Lord Jesus! (Rom 5.12-21) Our sin was forgiven, and the door of eternal life has been opened to us!

    Ephesians 2:4-6 “(4)  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, (5)  even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), (6)  and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”

    Lord, thank you for Your mercy and grace.  Just a thought for the morning

     

    Carl

     

  • The Law: Our Tutor

    Thought for the Morning

    Galatians 3:23-25  But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24  Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25  But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

    Faith versus the Law is the question here.  Can you be justified through the Law? Paul writes the Law is only a tutor. A tutor helps you understand different principles and facts.  A tutor is a teacher. A tutor can teach us things but what you learn must be applied to be of any value. That’s where the problem lies, we may know the Law but in the application of the Law there is only failure. The Lord has tested His “chosen people” through the Law and there has been only disappointment.

    But faith is different.  In the book of Hebrews we find a definition of faith. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1) Faith is believing in something you have no control over.  I have faith that the sun will rise this morning and there is nothing I can do about it.

    Your thoughts and actions are based on faithful belief! What did Paul mean when he wrote,” faith which would afterward be revealed”? God dealt with His “chosen people” for hundreds of years via the “Law” and because of disobedience there was only failure. The concept of faith came with the Lord Jesus.

    Our salvation does not come by something we do (works of the Law). Salvation and life come from a faith in the One who gives life, and His willingness to give us that Life based on His love and grace.  We know it is “by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,” (Eph 2.8)

    Romans 3:28  Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

    Rejoice this morning that we are not saved by our works but by the grace of our loving Lord. Just a thought for the morning

     

    Carl

  • Is not My Word like a fire?

      “Is not My word like a fire” says the LORD,
    “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”
    Jeremiah 23:29

     Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet” who was rejected by the king of Judah and who lived through the taking of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

    In this portion of Jeremiah’s writings, he records the Lord speaking out against. false prophets. Ones that say their words are from the Lord but are not. God relates to Jeremiah the power and strength of His word. It is like a fire; it is like a hammer.

    When I think of these two physical references to His word, several things come to mind. Fire can be thought of as that which destroys, or it can give warmth.  A hammer that can be used to beat rocks into pieces, destroying them, but can also be used to build up something!

    The word of God can be used like a fire to destroy the false notions concerning our relationship with Him.  The fire of His word can set ablaze our sin, revealing it to us, making us aware of the destruction that will occur if we do not escape.  But the fire of His word also reveals to us the Cross where Gods Son suffered the flames of our sin giving us a way of escape.

    It can also be a means of testing of where we are in our relationship with Him.  But also, the fire of His word can give us warmth in our daily walk. It can light the way and draw us closer to Him.

    What about his word being like a hammer? The hammer of His word is the means by which He breaks down our resistance to His will for us.  How many times was the “word” used to guide us to salvation and we rejected.  The hammer of his word continued to chip away at our rejection until we could reject Him no more. The hammer of His word breaks away our rejection. But the hammer of His word also builds us up, driving truth into our very soul. The hammer of His word has placed us on a firm foundation.

    “Is not My word like a fire” says the LORD,
    “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”
    Jeremiah 23:29

    His word is like a fire and a hammer! Just a thought for the morning.

    Carl

  • Fix our eyes on Him

    “ Heaven joys shall soon await us on the Day we reach its’ shore,
    Meanwhile we must live the promise that one day we’ll weep no more.

    Chorus
    May our journey be the brighter and our soul at rest down here,
    ‘Till we reach our home in glory, where our hearts will never fear!

    Oh the weakness of this body and the sorrows of these years,
    will soon one day all be vanquished when we leave this veil of tears.

    For this little while we journey walking by our Saviours’ side
    May our eyes be fixed on Jesus ‘till at last with Him abide.”

    <>< written by D.A.C.
    9/1/2021….
    sing to the tune of
    “ Rise my soul behold ‘this Jesus” or
    To the tune of “ Come Thou fount of every blessing”
    8.7 8.7 D.
    To God be all the glory.
    😉🙌

  • Upright Man

    “Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes.”
    Ecclesiastes 7:29 29

    God created man in his own image (Genesis 1. 26) and He made him to stand upright. Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes, was a great king, the son of David and he truly had a handle on what man is really like. In the first chapter of his writings it says “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1.14). When God created mankind on the sixth day, he was to have dominion over the rest of creation. (Genesis 1. 26). He was to care for God’s creation.

    How we have failed. The first man sinned and all of us have been corrupted by that sin. We are creatures of many schemes. What is a scheme? Solomon seems to be writing of the many ways we have sought to defend ourselves or to attack others. The word is translated “inventions” in the KJV, and other translations. The word is only used twice in the Old Testament. In 2Chronicles 26.15, the other use of the word, it has to do with military readiness.

    Self-preservation is high on the list of the natural man’s activities. This in itself is not totally bad but when it leads to attack on others, to elevate ourselves it becomes sinful. Our schemes can be very subtle. Gossip, and talking behind someone’s back can be part of a scheme to make ourselves look better. Falsely accusing someone else can be part of a scheme to hurt another. We are not to “invent” ways to hurt anyone.

    The rulers of Israel at the time of Christ falsely accused the Lord Jesus, leading to His crucifixion. There were many schemes laid against Him throughout His time on this earth. There were schemes against the apostles Paul, Peter, and others who were attempting to spread the Good News, the Gospel.
    We are not to be schemers. The Lord Jesus gave us a command. “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12). There is no place for scheming if we are obedient to this command.

    “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” – 1 John 3:11

    True love will defeat any idea of scheming. Just a thought for the morning

    Carl