“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”
John 10:27-29
Of all the things I remember about my father, I remember his strong hands the most. You see, my father was in the lumber business and he had rough and calloused hands. But they were also strong hands and I remember the peace and security that my father’s hands would always bring just when I needed it the most.
I miss those strong hands. But today, you and I have a promise from the Word of God that tells us that we are in the Father’s hands and that nothing can snatch us out of those hands because you and I are loved perfectly by our Father. Our salvation, then, doesn’t come and go. It exists because God says it does!
Yet, so many Christians today worry themselves with doing just enough good to stay in the Father’s hands. But let me tell you that your salvation is not dependent upon how you act! It’s fully dependent on God’s saving power.
As a believer in Christ, you are loved absolutely, unconditionally, and perfectly. God will never change His mind about that. And because of that, there’s nothing to fear when it comes to your salvation because God will never let you go!
AS A BELIEVER IN CHRIST, YOU ARE FIRMLY IN GOD’S GRIP AND HE WILL NEVER LET YOU GO!
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!”
Proverbs 5:8–13
Solomon spent a great deal of time, it is the focus of much of the book of Proverbs, instructing his son on how to avoid temptation. He described some of the different forms it takes, and how it works. But he didn’t stop there. He went on to lay out the consequences of sin—past the immediate pleasure to the pain that inevitably follows.
Someone said, “Mice die in mouse traps because they do not understand why the cheese is free.” Every Christian has a consistent and dedicated foe who is working day after day to destroy our lives. We know this is true. Many of us who grew up in church remember singing about resisting Satan so he will flee. In the Bible we see time and again what happens when someone believes the devil’s lie and yields to temptation. And yet despite that knowledge, we still too often fall for the very same schemes that we know lead to destruction.
The lure of temptation is that it offers us something we want. It does not take a great deal of persuading to interest young children in ice cream. They typically have a very different response to broccoli. Our own desires are the hook on which the lure of temptation is dangled before us. “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed” (James 1:14).
Today's Growth Principle:
When Satan offers you “free” cheese, turn it down—it is always bait in a trap.
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