Discipleship | A People for His Name

Absolute Certainty about One's Own Salvation

June 29, 2011

At the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), Peter cited what God did through him in Caesarea in bringing Gentiles to salvation (15:7-11) as definitive proof that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses to be saved (cf. 15:1, 5). In his citation, Peter made a remarkable statement:

“And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us” (Acts 15:8).

Here, Peter declared that God, who infallibly knows the hearts of all people, supernaturally testified to the saving faith of the people in Caesarea to whom Peter preached the gospel (10:31-48). God did so by giving them the Holy Spirit.

Based on this statement, Peter and the other six witnesses who were with him (11:12) had absolute certainty that Cornelius and the rest of Peter’s hearers on that occasion had been saved. Moreover, Cornelius and all who were with him themselves thus had absolute certainty about their own salvation.

God supernaturally gave these people such certainty, and they would have never needed to have any doubt about their own salvation. Although God does not do so for us today with supernatural testimony that is outwardly visible, we, too, individually can and should have the same certainty about our own salvation through the ministry of the Spirit of God in our own hearts (Rom. 8:16; Gal. 4:6).

In Discipleship

Guitar Playing and Music Ministry Update

June 28, 2011

I have been playing the guitar for more than 25 years. In the past few months, noticeable progress in my playing has been very encouraging to me.

I have been able to play the soprano and alto parts together from 4-part music fairly well for quite some time now. Now, I’m finally attaining some proficiency on my guitar in playing other combinations as well: tenor-base and soprano-tenor.

Playing these various combinations has also had a very exciting side benefit that I had not expected—my ear is getting better at hearing different parts, and I’m being able to sing the tenor part better! I also have developed a new strumming technique that has given me something that I have wanted for some time as a complement to regular strumming and fingerpicking.

This past Sunday, for the first time ever, I accompanied all the congregational singing in church services for both morning and evening services. I also played a guitar offertory for the first time using a new style that I invented for filling out measures when I play two parts together from hymns.

Counting this past Sunday, I have now ministered 10 times this year with my guitar in church services! Praise God for His goodness in allowing me to make much improvement recently in using my guitar for His service!

In Music

Words That Weary God

June 25, 2011

The prophet Malachi indicted God’s people with some amazing words: “Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, ‘Wherein have we wearied Him?’ When ye say, ‘Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delighteth in them’; or, ‘Where is the God of judgment?'” (Mal. 2:17). Craig A. Blaising comments,

The Jews in Malachi’s day had failed to learn such hope [of God’s future punishment of evil people and rewarding of the righteous when He comes] from the Scriptures. They questioned God’s justice by saying that He delights in evil people and by asking, Where is the God of justice? Yet they were the guilty ones; they were the ones who were unfaithful to Him. Here too God responded by referring to His forthcoming judgment (Mal. 3:1-5). However, unlike the answers by the righteous biblical writers mentioned earlier [Job 24, 27; Ps. 73; Eccl. 8; Jer. 12; Hab. 2-3; mentioned in the previous paragraph in the commentary], the judgment which Malachi referred to was to be against the hypocritical questioners as well.

—BKC: OT, 1583; bold and italics in the quote are from the original
When we are tempted to question God’s justice, we would do well to allow this indictment (2:17) and God’s response to the people’s questioning His justice (3:1-5) to turn us away from yielding to the temptation to do so.

In Discipleship, Quotes

"Read Therein All the Days of His Life"

June 22, 2011

God’s instruction to His people about when they would come into the land that He had promised to give them (Deut. 17:14) and seek to set a king over them concluded with vital teaching (17:18-20). In these three verses, He declared and explained the necessity of the king’s daily interaction with His words.

The king would have to “write him a copy of [God’s] law in a book” (17:18). He then would have to have the copy with him and read in it “all the days of his life” (17:19a-b).

Through such lifelong daily interaction with God’s own words, the king would learn to fear God, as he should, “to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them” (17:19c-d). His reverence and awe for God developed in him by reading God’s words every day of his life would direct him to obey God comprehensively.

Such comprehensive obedience would serve vital purposes in his life: it would keep his heart from becoming “lifted up above his brethren” (17:20a); and it would ensure that he would not deviate from God’s commandments in any way (17:20b). Being humble with respect to his brethren and walking obediently along the straight way of God, he would prolong his reign and that of his children over Israel (17:20c).

From this teaching, we should learn the necessity of our feeding on God’s Word all the days of our lives. Only through such feasting on Scripture itself will be able to fear God, comprehensively obey Him, be humble, and walk in His ways, as we should.

For us to enjoy the quality and length of life that God intends for us, we must richly partake of His words every day and allow that partaking to accomplish all His purposes in our lives. Doing so, our descendants and we will be what God wants us to be: “A chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that [we] should show forth the praises of Him who hath called [us] out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1 Pet. 2:10)!

Let us read our Bibles all the days of our lives with these things in mind.

In Bible reading

Understand What You Can

June 21, 2011

After 20 years of reading the Bible through every year, I am more convinced now than ever before that it is a trap to think that not understanding everything in my reading means I should stick to studying or reading a particular passage or book until I do understand everything and not worry about reading through the whole Bible. What’s more, I fully believe that we should expect throughout our lives that God would keep on showing us great and wondrous things out of His Word that we have never seen before.

I can attest to many times even in recent years that God has shown me significant truths out of passages that I have read and studied intensively for years. In light of my experience, I encourage every believer to focus on understanding what he can and not be overly troubled about what he does not understand in his reading of Scripture.

Yes, we should try to understand as much as we can, but seeking such understanding should not be at the expense of profiting from the entire Bible year after year.

In Bible reading

Answered Prayers 6/20/11

June 20, 2011

Yesterday morning, I was quite discouraged because I had no upcoming opportunities to preach in my schedule, my employment situation was still not good, and some other concerns were weighing on me heavily. God ministered to me through the services yesterday and provided me with much encouragement, for which I am thankful.

Today, He mercifully provided me with a seemingly good prospect for additional tutoring for at least the next two weeks or so! Better than that, a pastor contacted me about ministering at his church this coming Sunday, and I also received some other good news concerning my efforts to get more preaching opportunities!

God willing, I will be tutoring a new high school student in chemistry for 4 hours this week, and I will be teaching SS and preaching twice on this Sunday. Praise God for answered prayers!

In Prayer

Guitar Music for "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"

June 18, 2011

Melody and chords for When I Survey the Wondrous Cross in my format for guitar.

In Guitar Music

Prayer for a Scammer

June 17, 2011

Recently, because of my being naïve and careless, a scammer succeeded in defrauding me of a fair amount of money. In keeping with the spirit of Jesus’ teaching to pray for those who wrong us (Matt. 5:44), I offer this prayer for the person who scammed me:

Heavenly Father, please deal with this person in such a way that he will repent of his sin of stealing before it is eternally too late. Let the wickedness of this wicked person come to an end.

If it would please You, so orchestrate the circumstances of this person’s life that it would be unmistakable to him that You have supernaturally intervened so that he “is snared in the work of his own hands” (Ps. 9:16) and thereby brought to repentance. Please also send someone into his life who will give him Your gospel concerning Your Son so that he will believe in Him and have his sins forgiven.

In Jesus name, Amen.

Mere Coincidence or Answered Prayer?

In Prayer

Jesus' Warning That Spammers Need to Heed

June 16, 2011

I have been blogging since February of this year and have learned much about writing, blogs, PHP, CSS—and the practices of spammers. Having to deal regularly with many spam messages, I think that spammers need to consider solemnly that Jesus taught, “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36). He

emphasizes the importance of what people say by speaking of every careless word they utter. When people speak lightly without paying serious attention to what they are saying, the careless word, the word uttered without any thought of the effect that it will have on other people, then that word shows something of what they are, deep down . . . This makes it more significant than the person uttering it may think, and it will be taken into account on Judgment Day. Jesus is saying that in the end we must all give account of ourselves and that words we take lightly will then be seen to have meaning, for they show our innermost being.—Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, 322; bold words are in italics in the original

Based on the content of the spam messages that I am receiving on my site, I believe that their authors are sadly storing up for themselves wrath from God in the Day of Judgment.

Every spam message that supposedly comments on a post but does not have anything to do with the post itself displays a failure to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Spammers fail to obey the Golden Rule of doing to others what they would want to have done to themselves.

May God grant spammers repentance of their multiplying idle words through their worthless messages that display their lack of love for their fellow man.

In Interpretation, Quotes

Halfway done!

June 10, 2011

On day 161 of 2011, I reached the halfway mark for reading through the LXX this year: 461 chapters/920 total! Lord willing, I may yet make it through the Bible in Greek this year!

In Bible reading

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