Profaning The Name Of God

When you take God’s name in vain, it shows two things: an empty head and an empty heart. Someone has said, “Profanity is a feeble mind trying to express itself.” Jesus also said, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). A profane mouth just reveals a profane heart. 

Profanity is an insult flung into the face of God. It is so needless and therefore is inexcusable. 

What does a person get when he takes God’s name in vain? Only judgment. It’s like a fish that bites a hook that has no bait on it. What contempt it shows to Almighty God. Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.”

Passing On The Faith

Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:5-6: “…when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” 

Isn’t that great? It all began with grandma! And then it went to mama and then it went to Timothy. That’s the way it ought to be. 

A woman came to her pastor and said, “When should I start the religious training of my child? Is it too late to start at 6 years of age?” He said, “No, that’s too late.” She said, “Well how about 6 months?” He said, “That’s too late.” She said, “Then when should I start?” He said, “With his grandparents.” 

This is what parents are supposed to do hand their faith in God to each generation. Parents can live for their grandchildren. They can even live for their great-grandchildren. Psalm 112:1-2 says, “Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who delights greatly in His commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed.” 

The greatest gift parents can give their children is to teach them to worship.

Why Prayer?

Why does God want us to pray?

Matthew 6:8 says, “Your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask Him.” So why ask God to do what He already wants to do? Why ask God to do something for us when He already knows our needs? Those are good questions.

Why has our Lord commanded prayer? When we pray, we don’t pray to inform God. God already knows. We don’t pray to instruct God, because God has a will. What we do is invite God when we pray. 

Now what does that mean? God wants to do things in us, and He wants to do those things through prayer. God wants us to have fellowship with Him, and so God tells us to pray. It’s how we fellowship with our Lord. It’s you and God getting together.

Jesus Became Nothing For Us

Jesus stepped out of Heaven and went from sovereignty to slavery. He humbled Himself. He became obedient. Satan, in contrast, in his pride said, “I will ascend. I will be like the Most High.” He thought, “I’m going up, up, up, up.” But God said, “No, you’re going down, down, down, down, down.” Jesus stepped out of glory and humbled Himself. It is for this reason the Bible says, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:9-10).

Many of us fight for reputation. Jesus laid aside His reputation. We like to talk about how we came from nothing to something. Every now and then, you’ll have an evangelist who will travel from place to place. Maybe God saved him in prison and his message is, “From the Prison to the Pulpit.” I’m glad for that, but Jesus came from something and made Himself of no reputation for our sake.

Jesus Is Coming On Time

We hear the news. We remember Jesus spoke of the days before His return and referenced “wars and rumors of wars. famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.” (See Matthew 24:6-7.) We hear of food shortages, see rising prices, and read Revelation 6:6, which talks about two pounds of wheat costing a day’s wages.

It’s natural to ask: When will Jesus return? The truth is, we don’t know. The Apostle Peter encouraged us: “Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

Pastor likened our wait to a walk near the ocean. If the ocean is eternity with Christ, our feet are in the sand, just touching the water. It is not that we have been journeying to the ocean from 2,000 miles away; we have been walking at surf’s edge since Jesus’ ascension in the first century.

“Now some people have the idea we’re way over here and the Second Coming is off over there somewhere,” Pastor Rogers said. “No, no, no, no, no. Friend, we’re right on the edge; we’re just walking along the seashore. We are living on the edge of eternity.” In other words, eternity isn’t in front of us; it’s right beside us. Jesus could come at any moment.

Jesus will return exactly on time. Pastor Rogers said: “God doesn’t punch a time-clock when He goes to work. He doesn’t wear a wristwatch. God is not concerned with time. I’ll tell you one thing: It’s two thousand years nearer than it’s ever been before. Jesus Christ is coming. I’ve stopped looking for the signs and started listening for the trumpet.”

Jesus Is Coming

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven’” (Acts 1:10-11).

Jesus’ Second Coming is certain; it is settled biblical fact, just as much a part of the Gospel as His first coming, His death on the cross, and His resurrection.

His return is the completion of the Gospel story. Through sin, man parted ways with God in the Garden of Eden. Through perfect sacrifice, God provided a way back to Himself on Calvary. Through the empty tomb, eternal life was demonstrated and guaranteed. Soon, and very soon, the fullness of the Gospel will be fulfilled. Jesus will come for His bride, the Church, and restore relationship between God and man for all eternity.

Peter warned us that “scoffers” would ask, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). But Jesus promised us that “one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). We can be certain that the prophecies throughout the Bible, including in the Book of Revelation, will hold true. After all, the final book of the Bible is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place” (Revelation 1:1).

Jesus made sure we would know we haven’t been forgotten. Just before His crucifixion, Jesus comforted His disciples with these words: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3).

He will come again. We can be certain.

Men And Women Of Valor

There are some of you who could witness. But you don’t witness because you’re afraid. Some of you could teach. But you don’t teach because you’re afraid. Some of you could sing, but the icy fingers of fear would grip your throat, and therefore, you don’t sing. Some of you ought to tithe, but you’re afraid you won’t have enough money if you tithe. And so fear keeps you from doing that. 

Some of you could launch out into some business venture, or to some episode that God has for your life, because God has called you and God has equipped you. 

But you are like the man in Matthew chapter 25 who buried his talent in the ground, and when his lord asked for an accounting, he said, “I was afraid.” Fear and sin are inseparably linked. And the first words that Adam spoke in the Garden after he’d sinned are these: “I heard Your voice, and I was afraid.” 

“I was afraid.” What kind of people is God looking for today? God is looking for men and women of vision and men and women of valor! Don’t let the devil intimidate you! Friend, here is God’s rationale: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

Has Jesus Drawn Near To You?

Jesus met the two disciples on the way to Emmaus and He challenged them with the Word of God. It’s important to note that Jesus sought them. “So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near.” And He’s done that so many times for you and me. Jesus did not seek them to condemn them or even to condone them but to claim them and to comfort them. And just as the Lord Jesus sought us when we were lost we didn’t seek Him; He sought us, and we love Him because He first loved us so He sought these men. Now these men, evidently, were already believers, although they were backslidden and discouraged. If Jesus would seek us when we were outright sinners, surely, He will seek us when we’re saved and away from Him. At some point, every backslidden and confused Christian is met by Jesus in this way not to be condemned or condoned, but to be comforted and claimed

How has Jesus sought after you before you knew Him and after you came to know Him?

How has He called us to likewise seek after others who are far from Him?

Is Your Worship Pleasing God?

In John 4, Jesus told the woman at the well about true worship. We must also recognize that there is false worship that is unacceptable before God. Half-hearted worship is an insult to Almighty God. 

There is idolatrous worship. There is insincere worship. There’s even sinful worship. Did you know that if you come to worship God or get on your knees at home and there is sin in your heart, it makes God angry? When we worship God with sin in our hearts, God says, I will not hear you. To worship God with an unclean heart is unacceptable to God.

True worship is the adoring contemplation of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Worship is all that we are, responding to all that God is. All that we are: body, soul, and spirit mind, emotion, and will. It is everything in me responding to all that God is.

Unasked Prayers

Do you know the greatest problem in prayer is not unanswered prayer? It is unasked prayer. Most of us don’t even get to the asking part. James 4:2 says, “Ye have not, because ye ask not.”

Unoffered prayer is not merely a tragedy, it is a sin. Samuel said, “Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way” (1 Samuel 12:23). 

Over and over again, the Bible not only invites us to pray the Bible commands us to pray. The Bible says of Jesus, “And He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).

The Lord Jesus said in Mark 14:38, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” The Apostle Paul said, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). 

One reason you are so full of care right now is because you have not truly learned how to pray. You are to ask God for everything that you need.