Devotions

“You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:10, NKJV).

This is a powerful statement to make. Call on God as a witness to your holiness! Yet, without flinching, Paul boasted to the believers in Thessalonica, “My co-workers and I lived blamelessly before you and before God. Our conduct was righteous and pure. God is witness to our holy behavior and you also are witnesses. You saw that we walked holy and blameless before God and men.”

Paul was an effective preacher, and he knew the secret to moving people toward God. He could stand boldly before every living soul and testify, “I live daily under the gaze of a holy God. I walk always as if his holy eyes are upon me, and you all are witnesses to my blameless life!”

The apostle had a passionate desire for every believer to have this same power. He prayed night and day that all of God’s children would live their lives holy and unblemished before God. “So that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:13).

The rich young ruler who came to Jesus had been good from his youth, and that goodness won him the love and respect of Jesus (see Matthew 19:16-20). However, something was lacking, and that one thing makes all the difference. Friend, if you do not have this same purpose fueling everything you say and do, you can never be blameless before God and man, “That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you” (2 Thessalonians 1:12). Goodness alone won’t give us eternal life or draw others to Christ. We must have the Holy Spirit working in us and through us, directing all the glory to God!

This is what motivated Paul to live a blameless life: He was jealous for the glory and name of Jesus! He knew everything had to be built on that foundation because all human goodness is as filthy rags. What distinguishes the blameless walk is a consuming desire to honor the name of Jesus before all people.

The United Nations conducts frequent studies on addiction throughout the world. The number is always around 270 million drug abusers globally, but the real number is likely twice that. Many countries don’t report the truth because of cultural shame and political ramifications.

Research by Teen Challenge, the nonprofit my father founded for at-risk youth, reveals that in Pakistan, one in every four men uses heroin, and most of them are addicted. In China, you can buy heroin for the price of a boiled egg. India, it is believed, is home to approximately 20 percent of all drug addicts on earth. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 46 million people in America are classified as having substance abuse disorders.

These figures are enough to deflate the faith of the hardiest of Christians. Are we even making a dent in the world with the gospel?

For perspective, let’s look at the world after Jesus’ ascension. The odds were overwhelmingly against successful establishment of the church. The Roman empire was a shopping center of pagan idolatry and cults that had migrated from Egypt and Syria. Jesus’s followers were harassed and beaten by the Sanhedrin, and they were jailed, tortured and murdered by the Romans. New believers in the church were unruly, while Jews and Gentiles bickered endlessly over doctrine. The apostles plowed new ground every day, unsure of where the next boulder would be.

Yet they forged ahead with one goal: Sow the seed. Paul was determined only to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to his world and to let God do the supernatural work. ”Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything,” he said, “but only God who gives the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:7, ESV).

In the sixties, Teen Challenge grew through this same adherence to the message. Drugs, the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Vietnam War had upended the national psyche, causing widespread despair among youth. When God called my father to do his part in his city, he rolled up his sleeves. Generations of families now walk in the light of redemption because one man obeyed.

Proverbs tells us to keep these words front and center: “Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you” (Proverbs 4:25). This is our mandate! Be fearless, stay on message and do not waver! Our generation is counting on us.

Amy and I returned home recently from a week in Manhattan. New York is a great city in many ways, but in others, it reminds me of ancient Nineveh. It’s a center of both United States and global culture. Whatever you’re looking for, you can probably find it in that city. There are many expressions of religion but little light. Many historical representations of the Christian faith have sacrificed truth on the altar of cultural accommodation.

I do not mean to insinuate that there are not many God-fearing pastors and churches in the city. There definitely are. These pastors, like Elijah in his day, serve the Lord faithfully in a very challenging context. Indeed, thousands uncompromisingly serve there even though it is a difficult place to live and minister.

Nor am I saying that New York is unique. The same could be said of large and small towns in the Bible Belt and beyond. It’s just more visible in a place like New York. If anything, it is simply a concentrated manifestation of the brokenness of our broader society.

The dilemma is how faithful Christ-followers should respond when they find themselves in places like this. As a long-term missionary to the Muslim world, I have learned that my response should never be one of despair. What we see is only part of the reality. God is always at work, even in the most wicked context. So, our observations should drive us to our knees as we cry out, “Oh God, bring more gospel hope to this city!”

We do not call down curses like Jonah did. We might hear God say, as he did to Jonah, “Should I not have pity on this great city in which there are more than eight million people?” (see Jonah 4:11). Instead, with the heart of God as our guide, we pray and ask others to do likewise.

In the natural, it may seem hopeless; but with God, all things are possible. We’ll always bear more and better fruit when our approach is about lighting gospel candles instead of simply cursing the darkness.

_{Mark Renfroe and his wife, Amy, have been involved in field missions work for 30 years. Mark served as the area director for Assemblies of God World Missions and currently serves as the chief missions officer for World Challenge.}

I am afraid.

Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me;

Terrors of death are fallen upon me.

Afraid because there is more evil in me than good,

Lying rather than righteousness,

Weakness instead of strength.

I am like an unripe olive tree

Without fruit.

Oh, that I had wings like a dove,

I would fly away

And be at rest.

I would hasten my escape

From the windy storm

And tempest.

Afraid God may cast me off

And curse this green tree,

For He came seeking fruit

And found none.

So afraid that all I can do is trust in him.

I will call

And he will save me.

He shall hear my voice

And deliver my soul in peace

From the battle

That is against me.

He will bottle my tears.

God is for me.

He will keep my feet from falling,

That I my walk before him in the light of the living.

Are you engulfed in fear? Does your mind often stray from the safety of God’s presence into the frightening places that imagine every worst-case scenario? You are not alone, dear friends! Every person battles fear, even the bravest and strongest among us. The psalmist David expressed his fears and his need to return to the care and protection of the Lord. “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you” (Psalm 56:3, NKJV). 

This protection isn’t just for the physical body; our minds need fortifying, too. The enemy of our souls wants to weaken and conquer us with fear before the battle even begins. His strategy is to make us feel frail and defeated by sin and to be paralyzed by fears of things that will never happen.

However, God has other plans for us. “Trust in me!” he says. “Satan has already been defeated. You are my sons and daughters. Nothing is too hard for me, and you have my full protection. I am your mighty fortress! Give your fears to me.”

Here is the apostle Paul’s powerful antidote to fear. “And [the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). We have the power of Christ!

David plainly tells us why God answered his prayers. “He also brought me out into a broad [large] place; he delivered me because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:19, NKJV). Delight here means “to take pleasure or joy.” David was saying, “I bring pleasure to God. He delivered me simply because he takes pleasure in me.”

Our God takes pleasure in you and me as well! You see, we who trust in the Lord are his holy remnant. Remnant simply means “those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” They have been called out of a lazy Christendom and are totally devoted to Jesus.

To us, God says, “You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no longer be termed forsaken, nor shall your land any more be termed desolate; but you shall be called Hephzibah [My delight is in her], and your land Beulah, for the Lord delights in you” (Isaiah 62:3-4). Why does God come to my rescue, so willing to deliver me? It is because he delights in me! I am a pleasure to him, and he enjoys my friendship.

A precious young man once told me, “I have never been convinced that I have truly been accepted by the Lord. I seldom feel good enough for him, like I just do not measure up. I keep trying to appease him by doing something good for others.”

So many Christians feel this way. Over the years, I have known many older Christians who never had assurance in the Lord. They felt unworthy, unclean, unloved. They never believed they were a delight to the heart of God, so they were always trying to work out something in their lives to please him. If they failed in one area, they did three things in another area to try to make God happy.

Beloved, this can never be! When you come to Jesus, you cannot make up anything to him. He makes it all up to you because that is who he is. He says, “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust, my great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25).

No matter your failures or shortcomings, God makes it all up to you!