Christian Living

Christian Living

Creature of a Day, Part 1

Theme: Compelled to Speak
In this week’s lessons we see how David responds in the midst of trouble, which is by taking his cares to the Lord and trusting him to act.
Scripture: Psalm 39:1-13
Life is short. The world does not like to think deeply, especially about such things as life, death and eternity. The flesh is unable to think. The devil does not want us to think, certainly not about spiritual things. Instead, the world, the flesh and the devil conspire to keep us amused or entertained.

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Monday: The Christian ABC

Some time ago a young man said to me that how to become a Christian is the best-kept secret in America. I believe he was right, because the answer to the question “How can I become a Christian?” or “How can I get right with God?” is not often clearly stated in our pulpits, and lay Christians are not always able to give an answer either. As a result, many people are filled with a false confidence before God of what a Christian is—perhaps believing it comes about by biblical knowledge, good works, optimism, or whatever it might be. And others are simply indifferent or confused.

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Tuesday: What God Requires

Yesterday, we concluded by saying that because everyone is a sinner, everyone therefore deserves to be separated from God. Now sometimes people object to this teaching of the Word of God because they think that somehow it makes them the same as the worst criminals. In one sense, I should admit, it does, because both equally need a Savior. Yet this confuses the point. I’ll admit that if you are a fine person with good character, I would much rather have you than a scoundrel for a friend. But, the point I am making is that it is not what satisfies me, but what satisfies God. It is certainly good that people on this earth live by high standards—the higher the standard the better. As a matter of fact, once a person becomes a Christian he is enabled to live by even higher standards and to do it out of right motives.

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Wednesday: “Monopoly Righteousness”

Third, the pursuit of human goodness blinds men to their true condition. I remember seeing a movie years ago, in which a number of men in canoes were racing each other on a river. They were paddling as fast as they could go. First one man would get ahead, then another man would get ahead. But the joke of the movie was that the water was moving down the stream faster than their boats were moving up. So although they were racing one another as fast as their paddles could take them, all the while they were being swept toward a waterfall. In the final scene all the boats went over the waterfall together. Well, that is what men are doing. They have their minds so much on themselves, they do not see that the goodness of which they are capable is not taking them anywhere.

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Thursday: A Great Transaction

But now there is a second truth, and the second truth is a great one. The second truth that God asks you to believe is that if you are to become a Christian, you must believe that He loves you in spite of your sin and that He has acted in Jesus Christ to remove that sin and to begin to make you perfect once more by conforming you to Christ’s image. This is the heart of such great Scripture passages as John 3:16 and Romans 5:8. Romans 5:8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Or John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

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Friday: Total Commitment

Are you a Christian? That is the question. Is it real? The answer does not depend upon your good works, but rather upon your relationship to the Savior. Have you ever asked Jesus Christ to be your Savior? You must say, “Lord Jesus Christ, I admit that I am less perfect than you are, and therefore that I deserve nothing–that I have no claims upon you. Nevertheless, I believe that you love me and died for me and that now by grace I can stand before you, clothed in your righteousness. Finally, I commit my life to you.

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How to Worship

Tuesday: God’s “Worth-ship”

Another way of making this point about worship being essential is to note that there are three great “musts” in John’s gospel. The first occurs in chapter 3, verse 7, where Jesus said, “Ye must be born again.” The second is in verse 14 of the same chapter. “Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The verses we are studying give us the third “must,” for they say that all who worship God “must worship him in spirit and in truth.” In other words these three doctrines–the necessity for the new birth, the necessity of Christ’s death, and the necessity of true worship–belong together.

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How to Worship

Wednesday: When True Worship Occurs

In addition, however, we must not confuse worship with feeling, for worship does not originate with the soul either, any more than it originates with the body. The soul is the seat of our emotions. It may be the case, and often is, that the emotions are stirred in real worship. At times tears fill the eyes or joy floods the heart. But unfortunately, it is possible for these things to happen without worship being present. It is possible to be moved by a song or by oratory, and yet not come to a genuine awareness of God and a fuller praise of His ways and nature. True worship occurs only when man’s spirit, that part of him which is akin to the divine nature (for God is spirit), actually meets with God, praising Him for His love, wisdom, beauty, truth, holiness, compassion, mercy, grace, power, and all His other attributes.

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How to Worship

Thursday: Worshiping in Truth

We should pray that God will use any form of church service in which we happen to be participating to that end of directing our attention to Him. And as for evaluating services is concerned, we need to ask this: When we leave our services on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, do we come out saying “Oh, wasn’t that unusual what the pastor did?” or “I’ve never heard a dialogue sermon before,” or “Weren’t the visual aids interesting?” Rather, do we come out saying “I never knew that about God,” and fix our mind upon Him?

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How to Worship

Friday: Through Christ Alone

We see this idea of how to approach God in the Old Testament in the instructions given to Moses for the design of the tabernacle. What was the original tabernacle? It was not a thing of great beauty or permanence. It had no stained-glass windows, no gothic arches. It was just made of pieces of wood and animal skins. But every part of it was significant. The tabernacle, in other words, taught the way to God. It was a great object lesson. Take that tabernacle with its altar for sacrifice, its laver for cleansing, its Holy Place, and its Holy of Holies, and you have a perfect illustration of how a person must approach God.

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How to Know the Will of God

Monday: God’s Revelation

How can you know God’s will? How’s it possible for you to know the mind of God? If God has a plan for your life, how does He reveal it to you? How can you find that plan? Or to put it in other words, how does a sinful, finite human being come to know what a holy and infinite God desires? In this study we’re going to look at verses which assure us that God will give us the guidance we need for every aspect of our lives, and which show us how to find that guidance.

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How to Know the Will of God

Tuesday: God’s Will and His Word

The second great principle for knowing the will of God is that nothing can be the will of God that is contrary to the Word of God. The God who is leading you now is the God who inspired the Bible, and He is not contradictory in His commandments. Consequently, nothing can be the will of God for you that is not in accordance with His Word.

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How to Know the Will of God

Wednesday: Led by the Lord’s Eye

Now there’s one more principle, a third principle, and it’s also important. It is the principle of daily and even hourly fellowship with the Lord. Psalm 32:8 states it like this: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye.” Clearly, if God is to guide us with His eye, He must first catch our eye. And this means that we must look to Him regularly throughout the day.

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How to Know the Will of God

Thursday: Grace Leading to Holiness

Comparisons such as this defeat any approach to the problem through rules and regulations. And any such comparison turns us back once more to the principles of Scripture. I’d like to suggest three great principles that will help any Christian in at least 99% of his difficulties. These principles are found throughout Scripture, but they are summarized in three important verses: Romans 6:14, 1 Corinthians 6:12 (also 10:23, which repeats it), and Philippians 4:8. These verses tell you that you are to live (as you have been saved) by grace, and that you are to pursue the highest things. Now let’s look at these one at a time.

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How to Know the Will of God

Friday: Laying Your Rights Aside

Now the second principle for determining God’s will in doubtful matters is that, although all things are permissible for the Christian because he is not under the law but under grace, still all things are not helpful, and some things should therefore be avoided. This is true for two reasons: first, because the thing itself may gain a harmful control over him and, second, because through him it may hurt other Christians.

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How to Get Along with Other Questions

Monday: How to Get Along with Other Christians

Have you ever had trouble getting along with another Christian? Perhaps you found it difficult because the other person was unwilling to respond to you, or because of what you suspected was a failure in yourself. Many Christians have the same problem. In fact, even in the New Testament church at Philippi, two good friends of the Apostle Paul were having similar problems. And Paul gave them some good advice. I’m sure that his advice will be helpful to you, too.

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How to Get Along with Other Questions

Tuesday: Christian Doctrine and Life

Bishop Handley Moule, who is one of the great commentators on the book of Philippians, has written some wonderful words on this point of having the mind of Christ. He lived in the last century, and some of his language is a bit archaic. But he is so good and this is so practical that I want to share his thoughts with you.

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How to Get Along with Other Questions

Wednesday: Christian Unity

To be humble, you need to stop thinking about yourself all the time. That’s what it means. You need to stop comparing yourself with your boss, the secretary who sits next to you, the other Sunday school teacher, or whoever it is who rubs you the wrong way. Instead, you need to think of what you can do to help that person, just as the Lord Jesus Christ did.

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How to Get Along with Other Questions

Thursday: Rejoicing Always

The third step in getting along with other Christians is to rejoice in the Lord. Paul says this in Philippians 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” Paul knew that if a Christian is rejoicing in God’s mercy and goodness to him, he is not so likely to be nit-picking with his fellow Christians. If your thoughts are filled with God, you will not be seeing another’s bad temper, laziness or unreliability, at least to the degree that you would if you were not doing this.

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How to Get Along with Other Questions

Friday: Surrendering Yourself

Have you ever noticed how many times he speaks of being “in the Lord Jesus Christ” in the first four verses of this chapter? Three times! And once he reminds the Philippians that “the Lord is at hand.” The solution is the Lord Jesus Christ. It is He who will do in the lives of yielded Christians what they might judge impossible. You can learn to get along with other Christians only as you surrender yourself to Christ and seek His will, as His Holy Spirit enters your life and begins to make you into the man or woman that he would have you be.

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How to Defeat Temptation

Monday: Defining Temptation

Most of us have heard scores of jokes about temptation, such as those by Oscar Wilde, who wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” Or again in Lady Widermere’s Fan, “I can resist anything…except temptation.” Jokes such as these are thought funny by those who are not engaged in the struggle. But any who are seriously struggling with temptation know that temptation is real, that it is serious, and that it can come to any believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, from any quarter, at any time.

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How to Defeat Temptation

Tuesday: Temptations of the Flesh

Now I’ve looked at these different verses from James because through them we can summarize the different teachings that the Bible has about temptation. When we summarize them, we see that there are two basic kinds of temptation: temptations from God, which are good (and it’s not even good to use that word; “testing” is a better word). And then there are temptations to sin, which are evil. This second kind of temptation, the temptation to sin, may be divided into temptations of the flesh, the world, and Satan. It is over these temptations that every believer must triumph. And therefore it’s these we must talk about in this study.

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How to Defeat Temptation

Wednesday: Renewing and Surrendering

The second main source of temptations is the world. Now what is the world? Clearly the Bible is not talking about the physical earth when it speaks of the world’s temptations. It’s talking rather about a system of values that are not divine values, and about a way of life that is not God’s way of life—a lifestyle, if you will. The Oxford English Dictionary hits upon this sense of the word when it defines the world as “worldly affairs, the aggregate of things earthly.” In this area we must place temptations to become president of the company or of the women’s auxiliary at the expense of others who also want the top position. We must include most of the sins of pride—pride in our ancestry, our wealth, our superior taste in art, music, or drama. We must include all desires to put down other people.

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How to Defeat Temptation

Thursday: How to Resist the Devil

Now secondly what does it mean to resist? How do we resist? The answer is, by means of God’s Word. The Lord Jesus Christ said to His disciples, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you,” meaning that purity of life can be ours to the degree that we feed upon the Bible and study it. The psalmist said, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word…Thy word have I hidden in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” Paul said, writing specifically of our spiritual warfare against Satan, “And take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

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How to Defeat Temptation

Friday: The Importance of God’s Word

Now that brings us to the big question, the one for which we’ve reviewed this history of Christ’s temptation. How did the Lord Jesus Christ come out on top of them? How did He resist them and overcome? The answer to this is contrary to what most people think, for they think that He did it by drawing on His divine nature. They believe that He had more power to resist temptation than we do.

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How to Overcome Anger

Monday: Murder of the Heart

Some time ago I heard of a man who claimed that he never got angry, though he had a very bad temper. But when someone confronted him with the fact that he often did get angry even though he claimed he didn’t, the man replied, “I am never angry, as long as I get what I want.” Unfortunately, he failed to recognize that he had a serious personal problem, and therefore failed to look for a solution. Now this might not have been the case if he’d only realized how serious anger is.

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How to Overcome Anger

Tuesday: Recognizing Our Fault

Now obviously, such a definition of murder—extending to unjustified anger and to expressions of contempt—searches to the depth of our beings, and to the things that we say when we are angry. There’s a difference between righteous anger and unrighteous anger. Jesus Himself spoke in righteous anger against the hypocritical stand taken by the so-called leaders of His day.

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How to Overcome Anger

Wednesday: When We Blame Others

The feud between Roosevelt and Taft, and the Teapot Dome scandal are two examples of human nature in action. The wrongdoer blaming everybody but himself. And we are all like that. That’s the point. We sin, but we cover up the sin. We refuse to acknowledge it, even to ourselves. No wonder, then, that Jesus taught we are to acknowledge our anger first of all.

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How to Overcome Anger

Friday: A New Heart from God

The third step in Christ’s cure for anger is to do what we must do immediately. This is the point of the next two verses of this chapter, for Jesus spoke of agreeing with your adversary quickly, lest the most terrible consequences follow. These verses do not teach, as some suppose, that God is the adversary and that we can lose our salvation if we continue in a course marked out for us by anger. Jesus did not mean that. Actually He was saying that sin has consequences, and that if you want to avoid the consequences you should confess and make right the sin as soon as you are able.

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How to Be Free From Worry

Monday: Stop Worrying

As we talk about worry I’m reminded of an interesting Time magazine article I once read on the presence of worry in America, written back in March 1961. The point of the study was this. The breakdown of faith in God and in reason, coupled with the accelerated pace and high tension of modern life, has produced intense anxiety in many millions of people; so much so, in fact, that it’s correct to call worry one of the most widespread and debilitating characteristics of our time.

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How to Be Free From Worry

Tuesday: The Importance of “Therefore”

Christians, you see, are not to be anxious or worried about anything. We worry, that’s true, but we do not need to. Moreover, we should not worry. For worry can effectively stifle the Christian life and ruin one’s witness.

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How to Be Free From Worry

Wednesday: He Careth for You

Now what are these three teachings? Well, the first concerns the proper attitude of a Christian toward money. Oh that’s important because so many of our worries have to do with material things. In that section of the Sermon Jesus taught that the love of money is harmful because it is impossible for a person to serve God and money at the same time. Then he added that, for the same reason, His followers should not be anxious about some future happening or provision. We cannot serve God and worry about anything, including money, at the same time.

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How to Be Free From Worry

Thursday: Seek First His Righteousness

The final reason not to worry which Jesus gave is one that appeals to experience. Jesus said, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (v. 33). In other words, make it your business to seek God’s interests and follow His way, and you’ll see that all your physical needs will be met effortlessly and without any need for you to take thought about them.

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How to Be Free From Worry

Friday: The Man Who Never Worries

At this point someone may be saying, “I can see from the reasons you’ve been giving that I should not worry, but still I do worry. Is there an answer? What is the solution for me personally?” I believe the answer to this question is a simple one.

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How to Triumph in Suffering

Monday: Joy and Happiness

What is joy? Quite simply, joy is a supernatural delight in God and His goodness. When joy is at work, it transforms our entire outlook on life, even its unhappy parts. Perhaps I can better explain what joy is by contrasting it with happiness, because these are entirely different things. Every Christian attribute has its counterpart in the world. The world has passion; Christians have love. The world strives for security; Christians trust God. The world seeks self-gratification; Christians know peace, even in want. And in the same way, the world seeks happiness while Christians know joy. 

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How to Triumph in Suffering

Tuesday: Joy in Our Troubles

In yesterday’s study, we concluded by talking about happiness. On the other hand, joy is quite different. Joy comes directly from God, and is not related to circumstances; and so no circumstances can ever destroy it. Thus if the individual belongs to God and is allowing God to fill him with joy—along with all the other fruits of the Christian life described in Galatians 5:22-23—he will triumph. 

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How to Triumph in Suffering

Wednesday: Becoming a Christian

The first principle for having Christian joy is that you must be a Christian. I know this seems obvious, but in my experience at least two classes of people need to face this squarely. The first class is composed of those who are not Christians and know it, but who think that Christian fruits can be grown without a Christian life. If you are such a person, you need to recognize that joy is supernatural, and that it’s only given to those who have surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ. 

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How to Triumph in Suffering

Thursday: Holiness and Peace

Sin keeps us from God, who is the source of joy. And anxiety also works against it. Instead of experiencing sin and anxiety in his life, the believer in Jesus Christ should experience a life of holiness and peace. And he should realize God’s peace as he submits all aspects of his future to Him. Paul wrote, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7). 

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How to Triumph in Suffering

Friday: Knowing God and His Word

There’s a great deal of unrest in this world, and there will always be unrest for those who do not know Jesus. Apart from Him there is no true peace, no joy, and no real happiness either. But this should never be the case for the Christian. If you are a Christian, you should draw close to God. You should feed on Scripture, and “the God of hope [will] fill you with all joy and peace in believing” (Rom. 15:13). 

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How to Tell Others About Christ

Monday: The Church’s “Marching Orders”

When Jesus Christ told his disciples to “Go… and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” he was giving them what the Duke of Wellington once described as the Church’s “marching orders.” They were to tell others about Him. They were to carry the Gospel everywhere. 

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How to Tell Others About Christ

Tuesday: Taking an Interest in Unbelievers

In yesterday’s study we concluded by asking if you keep aloof from unbelievers, or do you take the Gospel to those who need it? Another way of asking the same thing is to ask whether or not you have contact with non-Christians socially. Do you go to their homes, sit in their kitchens, ask hem their interests? 

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How to Tell Others About Christ

Wednesday: The Gospel for Every Need

Yesterday, we listed the second principle, which is that Jesus began his conversation with a question. We pointed out that one consequence of this was that the woman’s interest in talking with Jesus was aroused.

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How to Tell Others About Christ

Thursday: Comfort and Conviction

Fourth, stress the Good News. Show that the Gospel of Jesus Christ offers comfort. I am sure you realize that this does not mean we are totally to overlook sin. Jesus did not do that. He brought the woman to the point of recognizing her sin by His reference to the issue of her husbands. Nevertheless, even as He gently uncovered the sin, he offered comfort; for He coupled His inquiry into her marital status with the invitation to come again to Him. 

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How to Tell Others About Christ

Friday: Pressing for a Decision

In England, in the early part of the nineteenth century, there was a woman who had heard the Gospel but had never been able to respond to it personally. She had come from a Christian home. She understood the faith. But, she could not come. She considered herself unworthy. One day she wandered into a very small church and sat down in the back. She was almost in despair and hardly heard the words of the elderly man who was speaking. Suddenly right in the middle of his address, the preacher stopped and, pointing his finger at her, said, “You, Miss, sitting there at the back, you can be saved now. You don’t need to do anything.” His words struck like thunder in her heart. She believed at once, and with her belief there came an unimaginable sense of peace and real joy.

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