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The Compassion of Sound Doctrine

 

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

Jesus, we belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. 

Acts 20:22–31

“And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

“Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.”

CONSIDER THIS

Doctrine matters. We live in an age where people seem to want it to matter less and less.
 
One of the things I love about Paul is the way he sees sound teaching as a matter of life and death. Check it out: “Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you.” And then this: “For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” Yesterday he reminded us he had taught publicly and from house to house. 
 
Paul’s greatest fear for the young church was not that people would lose their faith and leave the community. His concern? False teachers and bad doctrine. He knew that false teachers and bad doctrine were far more dangerous to the life of the church than the lukewarm commitment of its members. He called them “savage wolves.” For Paul, false teaching did not present itself or appear like a pack of savage wolves terrorizing a flock of sheep. That was the aftermath. He warned them so fiercely because he knew they would not see it coming. And he knew it would leave nothing but carnage in its wake.
 
It brings me no pleasure to say this, but we face a similar moment today as we are rapidly moving into an era of false teaching across the church. It centers largely around our theology (or lack thereof) of the human body, gender, and sexuality, all of which proceed from our understanding of the will of God as revealed through Scripture. Like Paul, we must not hesitate to proclaim the whole will of God. Just as it was with these early Christians, so it is with us—a matter of life and death. 
 
Let me offer a final warning from today’s text. It exposes what is largely missing in today’s conflicted battleground over these matters.
 
Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.  
 
For Paul, sound doctrine and teaching were not mere matters of right and wrong but of life and death; not about winning or losing but the real lives of real people. The teaching of sound doctrine is among the most compassionate acts in the kingdom of God. The corollary is also true. When sound doctrine is compromised it does grave damage to people. Hear the profound depth of compassion in Paul’s words again: 
 
Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.  
 
Could it be that the sound doctrine of the Word of God needs less defense and more offense—more clear articulation and compassionate application? What if we spent the next three years warning people night and day with tears? Maybe I am naive. I had to ask.  

THE PRAYER OF TRANSFORMATION

Lord Jesus, I am your witness. I long to be like you. 

I receive your righteousness and release my sinfulness.
I receive your wholeness and release my brokenness.
I receive your fullness and release my emptiness.
I receive your peace and release my anxiety.
I receive your joy and release my despair.
I receive your healing and release my sickness.
I receive the compassion of your doctrine and release my people-pleasing ways.

Come, Holy Spirit, transform my heart, mind, soul, and strength so that my consecration becomes your demonstration; that our lives become your sanctuary. For the glory of God our Father, amen.

THE JOURNAL PROMPTS

What about those last two questions: Could it be that the Word of God needs less defense and more offense—more clear articulation and compassionate application? What if we spent the next three years warning people night and day with tears?

THE HYMN

Today we will sing “The Church’s One Foundation” (hymn 388) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise. Get your copy here. 

For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt

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WHAT IS THIS? Wake-Up Call is a daily encouragement to shake off the slumber of our busy lives and turn our eyes toward Jesus. Each morning our community gathers around a Scripture, a reflection, a prayer, and a few short questions, inviting us to reorient our lives around the love of Jesus that transforms our hearts, homes, churches, and cities.

Comments and Discussion

4 Responses

  1. Unless you see and hear directly from God, with the invisible eyes and ears of your heart, you will never know what it means to be “compelled by the Spirit” You won’t know what it is to have the Holy Spirit warn you.

    The Bible warns us: “Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!” One way that is being done is through Bible soundbites. Here’s an example:

    Here’s the ignored and forgotten part of a sentence in the Bible. “. . . but God has revealed it to us by the Spirit.” The first part says: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him . . .” The first part without the second part is an incomplete soundbite that is often quoted alone. That misleads people into believing that their experience of God is limited to what their eyes can see and what their ears can hear, but the truth is that God is trying to supernaturally reveal Himself to people all the time, yet we rarely open the invisible eyes and ears of our heart. When the eyes and the ears of our heart are shut down, our seeing and hearing are limited to the physical world, and we can’t see and hear the glory of the Lord. Where are the Christ-followers who will warn people “day and night with their tears?”

    The Holy Spirit wants to show you things that eye can’t see, and ear can hear. Learn to look and listen with your heart. The best glasses and the best hearing aids are a humble heart that’s hungering and thirsting to experience more and more of Jesus.

    Knowing God involves more than the human eye can see or the ear can hear. It requires insight that only God can reveal to people. Unless you literally perceive the actual presence of God, He will seem like only a theory in your mind. If you aren’t allowing God to constantly work in your heart, Bible knowledge will do you little good. Sound doctrine and teaching require more than religious head knowledge!

    To settle for less than continually interacting with “Christ in you the hope of glory,” is to miss the whole point of Christianity. If instead of becoming institutionalized we Christians would let the risen Jesus continually revitalize us from within, out faith would be ever on fire!

    The Holy Spirit wants us to see the beauty and glory of human sexuality, but we need to humbly open our spiritual eyes and ears in order to do so. The purpose of the pleasure of sex isn’t self-gratification. It’s much greater than that. The pleasure of sex is designed to assure the reproduction of humanity and to connect a man and a woman heart-to-heart so they can build a beautiful heart-to-heart life-long relationship in God’s light and love, thus spiritually enriching each other, their children, and their community.

    Reply

    2. Learn to look and listen
      With the eyes and ears
      Of your heart
      And God’s Spirit will start
      To show you more than
      You can ask or think.

      By the free gift
      Of God’s grace
      People are invited
      To taste and see
      That the Lord is good,
      And to be led
      By His Spirit
      Into a lifestyle
      Of joyous surrender
      To His presence
      And His will.

      Reply

  2. Today’s Daily Wake-up Call is a much needed reminder that the Church as an ark is not a pleasure cruise liner, but rather a battleship. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood (other people), but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in heaven.” (Ephesians 6:12) Many believers are warring against an unseen enemy, and losing, because they either are uninformed about the true nature of this battle, or have been deceived into believing that such enemies don’t really exist for us modern post- Enlightenment individuals. Still, others are attempting to fight a spiritual battle with the weapons of the flesh, politics. Yes, simply fighting false teachings defensively won’t cut it. We must become more proactive by becoming more proficient with the best offensive weapon we have, the sword of the Spirit. As disciples, must continue to know and do Christ’s teachings. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32)

    Reply

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