Roots by the River

I received the following comment from a friend on 2 Peter chapter 1: "Dear Jim, I’ve read and reread the passage in 2 Peter, but I find myself being overwhelmed because the goal is so high—I’ll never reach it. - Your Friend." Dear Friend, You commented about the impossibility of the passage in 2 Peter: “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1:5-8). Really it is not impossible. It just says add to your faith these things, and if you have them, add in increasing majority. In other words, it doesn’t say that if you have them in some absolute form—just if they are always increasing , yo...

"But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:13). Sitting over a cup of coffee at one time or another, almost every woman has been called upon to listen to someone else tell their troubles. As Christians, what does God expect of us in these times? Certainly, we ought to be good listeners and be able to keep a secret where warranted. Both of these are good qualities—but are we not required to do more ? Even in a Bible study, it is not uncommon to find people sharing their difficulties and feeling refreshed for having done so. However, talking about our problems brings only temporary relief. In order for us to take an effective step forward, the Word of God must be brought to bear on the particular problem or temptation and prayer made for God’s help in meeting the problem in His way. But who is to exhort in this fashion? Exhortation seems to be a rare art among Christians. B...

RIGHT JUDGMENT "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye" (Matt. 7:1–5).   You are not a help to anyone, including yourself, if you are filled with a critical spirit. However, Jesus did not tell us to forget criticism. He said to get rid of your own plank, and then you will be able to see clearly to help someone else. There are two dangers in the misuse of Jesus’ state­ment in Matthew 7. First, we can fail to read to the end of verse five and not realize that we need to see clearly be­fore we try to...

"In the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Matt. 7:2). The ability to be critical is a valuable skill, but it can be either good or bad. Like all tools, what matters is how you use it . The first meaning of critic in the dictionary is “a person who forms or expresses judgments of people or things according to certain standards or values.” [1] There is nothing wrong with the abili­ty to critique in this way. We do it all the time, and we need to. There are critics in art, music, education, and government. Civilization requires critical people to keep us in line; otherwise, we would slump to an awful place. Another meaning of critic is “someone who cen­sures or finds fault.” When that is done well, it is alright. You can legitimately find fault with something that is bad. The process of criticism itself is not a problem. A critical mind is necessary. But having a critical spirit is another thing entir...

by Larry Lucas (continued from 9/2) When you begin to look for the truth about Jesus, there’s an unsettling sound that starts to develop in the background. It’s as though we have spent our lives walking along a railroad track, day after day, mile after mile; it’s all we’ve ever known. And now the track has led us beyond the noise of the city. Our hearing has become more sensitive. We could always hear the wind; now we hear the breeze. We sense light movements. And now, in the farthest reaches of our hearing, we become aware of a train. It’s Jesus talking about what comes next, after this life ceases: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are bles...

  by Larry Lucas (continued from 8/31) The four accounts mentioned above are named for their authors: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Mark’s profession is never mentioned, but Matthew was a tax collector, Luke was a physician, and John was a fisherman. Jesus called John to come and follow him at the very beginning of his ministry. He told John he’d make him a fisher of men. So John, along with his brother James, left his father Zebedee in the boat and took out after Jesus. They never turned back. The most explicit statements Jesus made about himself are concentrated in the Gospel of John. It’s there that you’ll most often find Jesus using the defining phrase “I am.” If you want to know what Jesus said about himself, it doesn’t get any more basic and to-the-point than this. Here, from the Gospel of John, is Jesus talking about who he is: “Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty’” (John 6:35...

by Larry Lucas   Three thousand years ago, a king named Solomon ruled in a land east of the Mediterranean Sea. That was 30 centuries ago. Since then, kingdoms large and small have regularly risen, flourished, and disappeared—and their rulers with them. Of all those kings, few are widely remembered, but Solomon is one of them. The curious thing though, is why he is remembered. Other names endure because of what they accomplished—they conquered, they built, they fended off. Not Solomon: he is remembered for a quality he possessed, and because he possessed more of it than any one before him or anyone since. That quality was wisdom . This post isn’t about Solomon. It’s about Jesus. However, the way you think about Jesus, what He said, what He did, or whether you’ll even give Him a hearing, has everything to do with wisdom—the very quality Solomon owned above all others. Wisdom is not the same as knowledge. The distinction is important, especially in an age when the process of acqu...

by W. Robert Smith, Th.D. Christianity is a body of facts, it is the interpretation of those facts, but more than that, it is a way of life. Christianity says something about how a man treats his wife and his child; it says something about whether a man is honest in his work, about how he pays his taxes, how he spends his time, about his attitudes of life, whether he is kind and loving, generous and patient, whether he is jealous or has a self-centered ambition. It says something about his aspirations and the purity of his thoughts, about his relationship to the church of Jesus Christ, about how he loves his fellow men, about how he spends his money and makes his money, about how much he charges for his services. Christianity deals with government, politics, medicine, philosophy. Christianity is a way of life which is supposed to dominate every aspect of a person’s being: "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and hath...

by W. Robert Smith, Th.D. Two young men who had fought side by side in the mud and blood of the Anzio Beachhead and were now enjoying life together on a college campus stopped at my desk one day after a class in logic. “Professor,” one of them said, “we are grateful for what you said today, only we wish you had said it about two weeks ago.”   This must be a rare day, I thought, as I asked, “What was so interesting about what was said today?”    “Well,” he explained, “you were saying how necessary it is to define terms. About two weeks ago we got into a bull session that turned into a hot debate. About three in the morning, when we were getting wild-eyed and desperate, we accidentally discovered that we were using different words to describe the same idea and actually we agreed. If we had thought to define our terms, we wouldn’t have lost that sleep.” These men illustrate the need for clear definition of terms. How often we use two different words for the s...

“Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near” (Revelation 1:3). Here is a promised blessing to those who read or hear it and take to heart what is written in it. Periodically, I take an informal poll that goes something like this: How long have you been a Christian, in years? How many times do you know that you have read the whole Bible? How many times do you know that you have read all of the New Testament? The last time was a few months ago in an evangelical church in another state. We collected all of the answers, added up the years and divided the total times into the total years. The results were, as I remember, for the New Testament once every four years; for the whole Bible once every eight years. At a men’s conference a few years ago, the results were New Testament once every 17 years, the whole Bible once every 27 years. If we have a conference of cons...

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). It was at a Bible conference in Japan in 1956 where I heard Bill Pape teach on faith. One of his statements stayed with me over these many years. It was, “ Faith requires ignorance .” Recently,* I received a letter from a man named Gary, a Young Life staffer in San Jose. Let me quote them both, starting with Gary. “It became quickly apparent that I had indeed relied very heavily on clarity and detail when it came to seeking God’s answers. Whether for myself or for those I work with, I was guilty of wanting clear answers and direction as the ultimate assurance of God’s will. “I began to consider people in the Bible that God directed. It seemed that in almost all cases He gave them only enough information to take the next step. ‘Leave your family and go to a far country that I will show you,’ ‘Stay in the city for three days until I send someone to you,’ ‘Stay in Jerusalem until I se...

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind ” (2 Timothy 1:7). God has given us His Holy Spirit. As we read the characteristics of the Spirit that He has given, we find… • Boldness (Acts 4:31, 4:8-13) • Faith (Acts 11:24) • Power (Acts 1:8) • Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) All of these are the opposite of fear. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). If God did not give a spirit of fear and we have a spirit of fear, guess who gave it. • Fear comes from the Enemy. • Fear always has to do with the future. • Fear is always based on a lie. • Fear is contrary to those gifts and fruit the Holy Spirit gives. At present, we are seeing thousands of Christians giving in to fear. These thousands are generating more thousands. The...

“Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach , not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:23-26). “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation : that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors , as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God . God ...

“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57) “As I have already said, the first twenty-five years of my Christian life I lived in utter ignorance of this simple truth. I can never forget the 14 th of August, 1910, when the scales dropped from my eyes, and I saw that Christ was my life. Christ was my victory . I wasn’t bothering about the theological questions that have been discussed to the entanglement and defeating of so many Christians…. How God does things…is His business, not mine. But I do know that God does this thing; and I know it not because of any experiences of victory God has given me—blessed though some of them have been, and beyond anything I dreamed possible—but I know it because God says so . I don’t know it by looking at my own victories, or at the victories of others. I don’t know it because of any present experience or consciousness of Christ that I have. I know it because the Word of God says it. He says,...

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). We know that faith and love remain. We have had our doubts about hope . Perhaps it is because we have placed a 21st century definition on hope . For instance, we may say something like, “I hope so,” meaning, “I wish it would happen, but it probably won’t.” To us, hope is wishy and doubtful. That is why it doesn’t sound like it belongs with faith and love. In the Bible, hope is not wishy; it is a sure thing. “God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure ” (Hebrews 6:18-19). “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for...

“Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge” (1 Timothy 6:20). We are bombarded with “godless chatter” every day. In university towns, we are immersed in it. In all of this, there is some of God’s truth. People hear God’s truth and consequently do not recognize the godless chatter for what it is. This makes the godless chatter even more dangerous. Nevertheless, Timothy was instructed to turn away from it. There are three ways to discern godless chatter: Know the wisdom of God very well. “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:6-8). Know the enemy “…in order that Satan might not outwit...