by Tim Hall

An officer once visited the hospital where soldiers lay wounded from battle. He offered sympathy to one young man for the loss of his leg. "Sir," the soldier replied, "I did not lose my leg. I consider it an honor to have given it for my country."

There is a decided difference between those two viewpoints. What one considers a tragic loss, another looks upon as a gift for a noble ideal. One must choose the vantage point from which they will view life's trials.

Some might consider Paul's losses as significant. When he decided to abandon his alliance with the rabbis and Pharisees, a door to a promising future was shut. But consider the view of those "sacrifices" Paul chose: "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him ..." (Philippians 3:7-9, NKJV).

Some focus on what has been given up and look back longingly on the past. At a moment of weakness, they may choose to reclaim what was once theirs. But those who look upon their sacrifices as gifts to their Lord feel no desire to go back. Their faces are set toward the prize of heaven. They are happy to give up whatever must be given.

Here is the key to becoming what God wants us to be –- cheerful givers. "So let each of you give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). As the check is dropped into the collection plate, do we think of what those dollars might have purchased? Do we consider the act a net loss financially? From a purely financial perspective it is a loss. But when properly motivated –- when the cause of God's kingdom is the choice we make -– the money in the tray has not been lost. It has been given.

All gifts to God must begin in the heart: "as he purposes in his heart." Otherwise the world's attitude will prevail and we will only grudgingly release our grip on whatever we give.

by Mike Benson

A little seven-year-old boy prayed one night before bed for God to give him a baby sister. When he awakened the next morning, the little boy found that there was no baby. Undaunted, he prayed a second time for the same thing. Still no baby.

Some months later, the boy and his father made a trip to the local hospital. When the two of them arrived, they stepped into a room in the maternity section and found the boy's mother holding a precious little baby sister in her right arm, and yet another baby sister in her left! The proud father looked down into the eyes of his young son and said, "Now, aren't you glad you prayed?" To which the little boy replied, "Yes, and aren't you glad I stopped when I did?!"

Oh, if only we could learn to pray with the confident expectation and faith of a seven-year-old. The Bible says, "Ask, and it will be given to you ..." (Matthew 7:7; cf. Luke 18:18; James 1:5,6). Dear Christian, what blessings have you forfeited because you failed to ask in faith?

Think about it.

by Stan Mitchell

"God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24).

One bright Sunday morning, a church in Pretoria, South Africa, had a visitor. He was a mild-looking man in his mid-twenties, a lawyer with wire-rimmed glasses. But he wasn't impressed with what he saw. He recalls seeing church members dozing in worship, and he wondered how serious they were about Christianity.

"They were not an assembly of devout souls," he writes in his autobiography. "They appeared rather to be worldly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom."

What is stunning is not only how true this evaluation was, but also how widespread. Frankly, it baffles me how casually Christians take worship. I wonder how those who make fun of the "Five acts of worship" concept would feel about the following worship activities: balancing the checkbook; discussing the weekend's events with a neighbor; transitioning from a momentary doze to outright, open-mouthed, coma.

And despite the jokes about the level of interest the sermon might deserve, the real problem is our abysmal lack of respect for what is taking place.

Here we are in audience with the one great God, an encounter like none other. The regularity of our doing so should not diminish the power of its impact. We might never get an appointment with the President or a film star, but we can meet with the ruler of all the earth any time! Nothing you do this week will be more important than worship. Nothing. By the way, would you like to know who the scholarly lawyer was who went to church one Sunday in South Africa? His name was Mohandas K. Gandhi, who would later liberate a billion souls from British Colonialism in what is now India and Pakistan. How would the world have changed if Gandhi had become a Christian?

Not only did that church miss an opportunity to convince a great man of the truth of Christ. They did something much more serious. They demonstrated a lack of respect for the God they worshipped!

by Barry Newton

It has been said that the best place to hide something is in plain sight. If those who teach the Bible were to selectively tip toe through Scripture to avoid offending current values, Lamentations 2:14 could very well be a verse hidden in plain sight. It reads:

"The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading." (NIV)

If people were to describe a sermon as being relevant and meaningful for their lives, what words would they use? I suspect that "positive, uplifting, and practical advice" would often be among the top contenders. Scripture does contain an encouraging message that fills us with hope which needs to be preached. But, how often would "expose my sin" show up in such a survey? How frequently are people appreciative and value a lesson which might legitimately step all over their toes?

If we roll the clock back to the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., we discover a drama playing out which provides a powerful lesson for today. God's people loved to seek out a steady diet of positive and affirming messages from their religious leaders./1 Among other degenerative spiritual conditions, their hearts had become corrupt with greed as their lives were centered around the drive to acquire more and more./2 Any message which confronted their sinful state was offensive to them; the only message they wanted to hear was that positive affirmation of the status quo, "You are OK. No harm will come to you."/3

Because God's people failed to repent, God was left with no other choice. He had been slow in pouring out his anger; however, the time had come to end their rebellion. God crushed his own people under the ruthless shoes of the Babylonians. From the smoldering rubble left in their wake, the sorrowful lament of Jeremiah rose up:

"The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading."/4

What makes for good Bible teaching? A faithful proclamation of God's Word. Sometimes that message will encourage us; on other occasions it will convict us. The goal is neither to be made to feel guilty nor to receive an uplifting slap on the back, but to be brought closer to the will of God. Then we will treat others and serve our awesome God acceptably. In writing to Timothy, Paul expressed similar instruction:

"Proclaim the message .... rebuke and encourage ... For the time will come when they will not tolerate healthy teaching. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will accumulate around themselves teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."/5

1\ Jeremiah 5:30-31 2\ Jeremiah 6:13 3\ Jeremiah 6:10, 13; 5:12, 31 4\ Lamentations 2:14 NIV 5\ 2 Timothy 4:2,3

by Richard Mansel

Scripture is filled with names for God such as Father and Creator. Scripture tells us that his name "is above every name" (Philippians 2:9, NKJV). God demands that we respect his name because it is sacred (Exodus 20:7). God was serious about his name being treated reverently. He says, "whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death" (Leviticus 24:16).

In the New Testament we do not have such a warning, but we must still revere and respect his name. Yet people toss the name of God around like rubbage with no thought for their irreverence.

God calls Moses from a burning bush in Exodus 3. Moses is told that he will lead God's people out of bondage. He asks God what name he should give to the Egyptians when they ask who sent him. God says, "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14). The "I AM" is an astounding name that has most often been translated as Yahweh or Jehovah.

Maimonides writes, "It is everywhere a proper name denoting the person of God, and Him only. The Hebrews may say the Elohim, the true God, in opposition to all false gods; but he never says the Jehovah, for Jehovah is the name of the true God only. He says again and again, my God or my Elohim, but never my Jehovah. He speaks of the God (Elohim) of Israel but never of the Jehovah of Israel, for there is no other Jehovah. He speaks of the living God, but never of the living Jehovah, because he cannot conceive of Jehovah as other than living."/1

John Piper writes, "Yahweh is used three times as often as the simple words for 'God.' What this shows is that God aims to be known not as a generic deity, but as a specific Person with a name that carries his unique character and mission."/2

When we are told that God's name is "I AM," we are given many lessons to consider.

First, God is eternal in existence. The "I AM" is always in the present. No matter the place, time, age, or circumstance, he is the "I AM." He exceeds our feeble human minds. He never changes and exists solely outside of time (James 1:17; 2 Peter 3:8). All of our so-called wisdom and gods are frivolous compared to Jehovah.

Second, God transcends empathy. He is one of a kind and exceeds the greatest human minds and imagination (Psalm 139:7-12). Empathy means "the identification and understanding of another's situation." Specifically, God is above our understanding. We can never empathize with God because we can never understand him. We are told that "God's ways are not man's ways" (Isaiah 55:8).

Third, God is inexhaustible in energy. He is the source of everything and all plug into him. Jesus is our path to God and our resource of salvation and life that will never fail. God is accessible only through Christ (John 14:6).

The name of God is beyond our understanding, but God is still before us as a loving, personal, and giving Father. God used his son to reach down to us if we will only extend our hand and heart to him, we will find the glorious blessings of our Lord (John 3:16; Revelation 3:20; Philippians 4:7).

/ 1. Girdlestone, Old Testament Synonyms, p. 62. / 2. www.desiringgod.org