When a person is newly born again, he seems inconsistent due to his unrelated emotions and the state of the external things or circumstances in his life. The apostle Paul had a strong and steady underlying consistency in his life. Consequently, he could let his external life change without internal distress because he was rooted and grounded in God. Most of us are not consistent spiritually because we are more concerned about being consistent externally. In the external expression of things, Paul lived in the basement, while his critics lived on the upper level. And these two levels do not begin to touch each other. But Paul’s consistency was down deep in the fundamentals. The great basis of his consistency was the agony of God in the redemption of the world, namely, the Cross of Christ.

State your beliefs to yourself again. Get back to the foundation of the Cross of Christ, doing away with any belief not based on it. In secular history the Cross is an infinitesimally small thing, but from the biblical perspective it is of more importance than all the empires of the world. If we get away from dwelling on the tragedy of God on the Cross in our preaching, our preaching produces nothing. It will not transmit the energy of God to man; it may be interesting, but it will have no power. However, when we preach the Cross, the energy of God is released. “. . . it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. . . . we preach Christ crucified . . .” (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).

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November 25, 2020

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Early this morning I woke up briefly and found a devotional on my phone about thanksgiving. This devotional reminded me to be thankful for difficult and or challenging circumstances.

And God says…”When you first prayed that I make you a man after My own heart years ago, you had no idea what that would entail. You thought I might just magically snap my fingers and make it happen without the ingredients of trials, time, patience, faith and hope. But those are essential ingredients in the life of a believer. If you are to become a man after my own heart you must go through trials and discover the joy of trusting Me while right inside of them. Nothing can touch you that I have not touched first and remember if I did not spare my own Son the cross, I could not possibly shortchange you the trials you must encounter. But while inside them, you can and have discovered the growth essential to the prayer……..Lord, make me a man after your own heart.”