Is Jesus Really the Only Way?

 “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment.” – Hebrews 10:26-27

Perhaps you’ve seen the movie: God’s Not Dead. The 2014 film tells the story of a first semester college student named Shane Harper who enrolls in a philosophy course and experiences a formidable challenge on the first day of class. You see, he is a committed Christian, and his professor is a militant atheist who requires every student to sign this simple statement in order to pass the class: “God is dead.” One by one, all the students in the class take out a sheet of paper and sign the statement. All of them…except for Shane. He refuses to sign it, and as a result, the professor requires him to spend the next three class sessions doing his best to prove that God’s Not Dead.

As you probably know, by many measures Christianity is on a decline in America. Fifty years ago, the overwhelming majority of Americans identified as “Christian” and considered the United States to be a Christian nation. But as much as I hate to admit it, America is a Christian nation no longer. Each year hundreds of churches close their doors. More than ever before, Christians are marginalized and criticized. A large percentage of Americans don’t believe the Bible to be God’s word. And millions of Americans—even many professed “Christians”—proclaim, “If there is a heaven, Jesus is certainly not the only way to get there.”

In this age of inclusivity and tolerance, many Christians are hesitant or embarrassed to affirm the exclusivity of the gospel. They deem it to be a huge cultural blunder to declare Christianity to be true and every other religion to be wrong. Let’s face it: We don’t like to be labeled “intolerant,” “narrow-minded” or “bigoted” by our culture. Therefore, we find ourselves second-guessing what the New Testament teaches about heaven. We think: Perhaps Christians have been too narrow-minded with their doctrine of salvation. Maybe we have misunderstood what Jesus and Scripture teach about salvation. Could it be that our belief in “Christ alone” is illogical and doesn’t stand up to intellectual scrutiny?

Allow me to share something very important that Christians everywhere need to hear—three proofs that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Proof #1: Jesus revealed it. Throughout the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), Jesus reveals this truth over and over. For example, in John 3:16-17, Jesus makes it clear that he is “the” Savior from whom we receive eternal life. In John 11:25, Jesus reveals himself as the “resurrection and the life.” In Matthew 28:18, Jesus tells his followers that he has “all authority in heaven.” In other words, Jesus oversees all of heaven, even the front gate. There’s no back door, and there’s no appeal to a higher power, because Jesus is the highest power. And Jesus couldn’t have been more clear than he is in John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So, is Jesus the only way to heaven? Yes! Jesus revealed it.

Proof #2: The New Testament confirms it. Time and again, the Book of Acts and the epistles confirm that Jesus provides the only path to salvation. In Acts 4:12, when the Apostle Peter is being pressured to stop preaching in Jesus’ name, he boldly proclaims, “Salvation is found in no one else [besides Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Paul declares in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” And according to Hebrews 10:26-27, if we reject Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, there is no other path to salvation. Inevitably, all those who reject Christ will have to face the music: “judgment and raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”

Proof #3: Logic proves it. Once we understand that Jesus Christ and the New Testament speak in harmony regarding salvation through Christ alone, it is completely illogical for any Bible-believing Christian to come to any conclusion other than this: Jesus is the only way to heaven. Now, Christians get accused all the time of clinging to beliefs that are too narrow-minded and too exclusive. But the fact is: All truth is narrow-minded and exclusive. Think about it: The truth that “two plus two equals four” is exclusive. Basic arithmetic doesn’t allow for any other conclusion. Two plus two can never equal three, five, seventeen or 38,000. Two plus two always equals four. Every truth is equally narrow-minded. Racism is wrong. Period! First degree murder is evil. Period! Incest, rape and armed robbery are always bad. Case closed! All truth and all truth claims are exclusive, narrow-minded and intolerant. Truth couldn’t care less about being politically correct. Truth doesn’t dabble in the “touchy-feely.” Truth is truth whether we like it or not.

In our culture where a growing number of Christians are more concerned with being politically correct than biblically correct, we need to embrace and speak the truth regarding salvation and heaven. We need to lock arms with Shane Harper and boldly proclaim the gospel. Pastor John MacArthur says it well: “As long as Christians are being duped or intimidated into softening the bold claims of Christ and widening the narrow road, the church will make no headway against postmodernism. We need to recover the distinctiveness of the gospel. We need to regain our confidence in the power of God’s truth. And we need to proclaim boldly that Christ is the only true hope for the people of this world. That may not be what people want to hear…but it is true nonetheless. [Therefore,] it is all the more urgent that we rise above all voices of confusion in the world and say so.”

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.

Four Commands for Dangerous Times

“Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” – Luke 12:1

When it was launched in 1936, the Queen Mary was the largest ship to cross the oceans. Through four decades and a World War she served until she was retired as a floating hotel and museum in Long Beach. During the conversion into a hotel, her three massive smokestacks were taken off to be scraped down and repainted. But on the dock, they crumbled. Nothing was left of the 3/4-inch steel plates from which the stacks had been formed. All that remained was more than thirty coats of paint that had been applied over the years. The steel underneath had rusted away.

At the end of Luke 11, Jesus rebuked some Pharisees and scribes who were a lot like those smokestacks. They were all painted up and looked really good on the outside, but on the inside they were wasting away. They were, in a word, hypocrites. Out of deep concern for what would face them on judgment day—and deep concern for the souls of the people they were corrupting—Jesus took a stand and called them out. And on the heels of calling out this hypocrisy, Luke records for us four warnings that Jesus gave to his true followers.

Jesus knew that the time of his crucifixion was fast approaching, and he wanted to prepare his apostles for the challenges they would soon face. The time was short for them, and, honestly, the time is short for us too. So, the four commands that Jesus gave his disciples in Luke 12:1-2 are four commands he also gives to his disciples today.

Command #1: Be on your guard against hypocrisy. In the first half of Luke 12:1, we’re told that “a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another.” And the second half of the verse contains Jesus’ warning to “be on your guard against the…Pharisees’ [hypocrisy].” How are those two statements linked? Because Jesus wanted to warn his followers that the pull of hypocrisy was coming from two directions: from the Pharisees AND from the crowds. Jesus was warning his disciples not to change their behavior out of a desire to please the crowd. And he was warning his disciples not to change their behavior out of fear of the religious leaders. They might be tempted to betray their own internal beliefs and character by behaving differently around the Pharisees than they did when they were NOT around the Pharisees … and soon they could end up being as hypocritical as the Pharisees themselves.

Command #2: Don’t fear people. Fear God.  Some of us go through life being so afraid of people. Why? People can only hurt us a little bit. And the hurt is always temporary. On the other hand, in recent years it’s become common for Christians to explain away the verses in Scripture that tell us to “fear God.” They explain, “God doesn’t want us to be afraid of Him. The word ‘fear’ can also be translated as ‘respect’ or ‘honor.’ God wants us to respect Him and honor Him.” But show me a Christian who doesn’t have a healthy fear of God’s eternal consequences for rebellion, and I’ll show you a Christian who’s out of control. On the other hand, as we live out our fear of God by trusting and obeying Him, we don’t have to be afraid of anything, including God Himself. You see, fear of God keeps us in check so that we don’t have to live in fear. Try to wrap your mind around that one!

Command #3: Confess Christ openly, boldly and often. As Jesus puts it in Luke 12:9, “He who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.” If you claim to have Jesus in your heart, but Jesus is never proclaimed from your mouth, then you really don’t have Jesus in your heart.  As Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.” So, if Jesus is really in your heart, let him flow freely from your lips. Your family, friends and community desperately need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

Command #4: Do not worry about how to confess Christ to others; the Holy Spirit will help you. Some of us are so afraid of confrontation, criticism and slander that we never, ever, ever bring up Jesus or heaven or church in our conversations with certain family members and friends. That’s sad. We don’t need to thump people over the head with the Bible, but talking about Jesus and heaven should be a natural part of our conversations. After all, Jesus is pretty amazing, isn’t he? And heaven is going to be pretty amazing, isn’t it? So, we should talk about it! And if you get tongue-tied, don’t worry—the Holy Spirit will help you find the words.

So, are you like the smokestacks on the Queen Mary—mostly paint and very little substance? Maybelline and Cover Girl are really good at making us look good on the outside. But Jesus Christ specializes in making us truly good on the inside. He specializes in eradicating hypocrisy from our lives. All we need to do is let him.

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.

Toxic Hypocrisy

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.” – Luke 11:39

The story is told of a zoo that was famous for its great variety of different animals. One day the gorilla died, and to keep up the appearance of a full range of animals, the zookeeper hired a man to wear a gorilla suit and fill in for the dead animal. During his first day on the job, the man made some feeble efforts to move and act like a gorilla. But as he tried to move convincingly, he tripped and fell over a perimeter wall and ended up in the lion exhibit. He began to scream, convinced his life was over…until the lion spoke to him: “Be quiet, or you’re going to get us both fired!”

It’s not very often that we run into people pretending to be apes or lions, but every day there are those around us who pretend to be much nicer on the outside than they really are on the inside. And far too often these individuals are quick to criticize others’ bad behavior while ignoring their own internal rottenness.  We have a word to describe such people: hypocrites.

In Luke 11:37-44, Jesus tackles hypocrisy head-on. And I’ve got to warn you: For some of us, his words sting a little. For others of us, his words sting a lot!

The passage begins with an invitation to dinner. One of the religious legalists (aka, a Pharisee) asked Jesus over to his house for a meal, and Jesus accepted his invitation. But as Jesus made a beeline from the front door to the dinner table, the Pharisee was shocked. Jesus didn’t join the other dinner guests in their traditional hand-washing ritual before dinner. Now, this wasn’t a matter of hygiene – it was purely ceremonial. For several generations the Jewish legalists had prided themselves in their meticulous observance of legalistic traditions that their forefathers had added to the Old Testament. Sadly, strict adherence to these rituals had become a litmus test for religious sincerity, and the Pharisees were the biggest promoters of this religious snake oil. On this occasion in Luke 11, Jesus had had enough. So, he spoke up and leveled 3 warnings against the Pharisees for their hypocritical legalism.

Warning #1: (v42) You major in the minors. Jesus challenged the Pharisees’ priorities. They spent considerable time counting out 10% of every seed and herb in their garden to give as their tithe. Meanwhile, their neighbors were suffering injustice and God was not being worshiped. What a travesty! The Pharisees had reduced their relationship with God to a list of rules, and it had backfired. Just as a healthy marriage cannot be reduced to a list of rules to follow, our relationship with God cannot boil down to a “Top 10” list either. The Pharisees believed that they were in God’s favor because they split hairs over the most insignificant religious acts. But they were dead wrong! God is much more concerned with love, compassion, justice and internal righteousness than He is with seeds and herbs.

Warning #2: (v43) You put your reputation before your character. In Jesus’ day the seats in a synagogue worked a lot like the seats at Dodger stadium. The seats up front were the VIP seats, and the seats in back (in the “nosebleed section”) were cheap seats for the unimportant people. Guess where the Pharisees always wanted to sit? You guessed it—in the front row where EVERYONE could see them and be impressed by them. The Pharisees had somehow forgotten what God had taught the prophet Samuel in the days of King Saul: “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Warren Wiersbe says it so well: “Reputation is what people think we are, character is what God knows we are.” Therefore, since our character is what’s most important to God, it must be what’s most important to us as Christ’s followers.

Warning #3: (v44) Instead of helping people, you’re harming them. In verse 44, Jesus compare the Pharisees to unmarked graves. According to Numbers 19:16, any Jew who touched a dead body would be ceremonially unclean for a whole week. Because of this, the Jewish people would walk far out of their way to avoid touching any grave or tomb. Yet Jesus told the Pharisees at the dinner table that they themselves were unmarked graves and tombs. In other words, when people came to the Pharisees to receive godly counsel and sound biblical teaching, what they actually received was ungodly counsel and false teaching. Instead of moving people closer to God, the Pharisees actually pulled them away from God. Instead of blessing people, they corrupted them.

Sadly, in First Century Israel the Pharisees were doing more harm than good. It was bad enough that their hypocrisy had corrupted their own relationships with God. But their hypocrisy was actually corrupting the whole community as well. Innocent bystanders were being defiled by their teaching. And Jesus knew that when this happens, judgment day will be especially severe for these toxic teachers and leaders.

Jesus’ stern warning to the Pharisees two thousand years ago stands as a stern warning for you and me today. Hypocrisy is a serious matter in the eyes of the world. But it’s an even more serious matter in the eyes of God. He calls you and me to be sincere: The same on the inside as we are on the outside. He calls you and me to eradicate hypocrisy from our lives and live as authentic, honest believers and followers of Jesus Christ. Until Christ returns, toxic hypocrisy will most likely remain in our world. But it doesn’t have to remain in you and me. 

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.

Looking For a Sign?

“This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” – Luke 11:29

About 10 years ago I was driving to the church office one morning, and something happened that I’ll never forget. I was going through a dry spell in my spiritual life. I didn’t sense a closeness to the Lord. I was feeling discouraged and rather hopeless about my work as a pastor. As I was driving up the street I cried out to God in prayer and asked Him, “God, would you show me a sign that I’m where I’m supposed to be? Give me some hope.” As I finished that prayer, my car came to a stop at an intersection. And as I looked across the street, I saw a road sign from my own church that read, “There Is Hope!”

Isn’t God amazing? Months earlier I had asked one of our church members to put the sign at that intersection because I wanted people to know there was hope at First Christian Church, because Jesus is in this church, and there’s ALWAYS hope in Jesus. When I asked that Christian brother to place the sign at that intersection, I had no idea that one day it would be God’s sign of hope for me when I needed it the most.

Sometimes God gives us a sign to make our faith in Him even stronger. And in Luke 11, Jesus Christ shines a light on the greatest sign you’ll ever see. In fact, it’s the greatest sign that God has ever shown the world. In verses 29-36, Jesus was addressing a large crowd and spoke about those who demanded a sign from heaven: “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah” (v. 29). Now, Luke doesn’t tell us what the sign of Jonah is, but Matthew does: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).

So, what is the sign of Jonah? It’s the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Or to say it more simply: The sign of Jonah is Jesus himself. Luke 11:30 makes this clear when Jesus says, “For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.” Almost 800 years earlier, Jonah was sent by God to the wicked city of Nineveh to preach to them. And in Jonah 3, the Ninevites believed Jonah’s message and repented from their sin.

Now, what sign did God give the Ninevites that Jonah’s message was true and should be taken seriously? The sign God gave them was Jonah himself.

Think about it. When the fierce storm was tearing apart the ship that Jonah was riding on, the sailors threw Jonah overboard. And with their own eyes they saw Jonah disappear under the waves. He did not resurface 30 seconds later, five minutes later or even one day later. Medically, what would we call a man who remained underwater for several days? We’d call him “dead.” And when this “dead” man came walking into town a week or two later, surely many of the Ninevites saw it as an act of God. In the same way, after three days in the grave, Jesus conquered death and, like Jonah, he was a dead man walking. And even though he had a resurrected, heavenly body, his glorified body still bore the scars in his hands and feet and side. So, the sign of Jonah that Jesus refers to is his own resurrected body.

Even before Jesus died and rose again, he walked among us as God’s sign from heaven. William Barclay hits the nail on the head as he writes, “[The crowd] could not see that the greatest sign that God could ever send was Jesus himself.” That’s why Jesus rebuked their generation and called it “wicked.” The greatest sign from heaven of God’s love, His perfect plan and wisdom, was right in front of them, and they were blind to it. And as our generation in 2019 ignores Jesus Christ and turns its back on him, Jesus turns to us and says the same thing: “This is a wicked generation!”

The crowds surrounding Jesus needed to wake up and see that the greatest sign from heaven was standing right in front of them. And our generation needs to do the same. The sign that we’ve been looking for all this time that proves God is real, that proves God is good, that proves God loves me and has a plan for my life has been right in front of us all along.

So, if you’re asking God to give you a sign, listen to His still, small reply: “I already have.”

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.

The Man Who Loved His Neighbor

“And who is my neighbor?” – Luke 10:29

Back in the 1950s and ’60s, there was a popular comic strip called Pogo. Even though Pogo was an opossum, he offered some wonderful insights about life. In one strip, Pogo was sitting beside a swamp fishing. Before long, a duck swam to the shore, waddled up and sat down beside him. The duck asked, “Has you see’d my cousin? He’s migrating north by kiddy car.” Pogo responded, “By kiddy car? Why don’t he fly?” The duck said, “Oh, he’s afraid of flying. He’s afraid he’s gonna fall.” A bit perplexed, Pogo asked, “Then why don’t he swim?” The duck responded, “Oh, he never swims. When he swims he gets seasick.” In complete frustration, Pogo looked at the duck and says, “When your cousin decided to be a duck, he entered the wrong business!”

I’m curious. If Pogo looked at the life of the average Christian, what would he see, and what would he say? Would he see Christians who refuse to do the basic things that Jesus has called every Christian to do? I’m afraid he might say, “When you decided to be a Christian, you entered the wrong business!” Theologian Haddon Robinson summarized Pogo’s insights this way: “Blessed is the duck who, when he decides to be a duck, does what ducks are supposed to do!” We could say much the same thing about Christians: Blessed is the follower of Christ, who when he decides to be a follower of Christ, does what followers of Christ are supposed to do.

In Luke 10, Jesus gave one of his most memorable illustrations of what followers of Christ are supposed to do in the famous Parable of the Good Samaritan. An “expert” in the law had asked Jesus to interpret the Old Testament law, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). In Luke 10: 29, the man asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Evidently this legal eagle thought Jesus would say that his neighbor was the guy next door in his upper-middle-class neighborhood, or his fellow Jewish leader at the temple. Never in a million years would he have imagined that Jesus would single out a half-dead mugging victim as his neighbor.

You probably know the story well. A certain man was traveling alone on a dangerous road. Some robbers pounced on him, beat him up, stole his clothes and belongings, and left him for dead at the side of the road. Afterward two separate men, a priest and a Levite, came down the road and saw him lying there. But instead of helping him, each man scooted to the other side of the road and kept walking. After all, according to Jewish law, they would be deemed ceremonially unclean for a full week if they touched a man who ended up dying. Obviously, both of these religious leaders valued ceremonial cleanliness more the fate of a dying stranger. But when a lowly Samaritan came by, he had compassion on the injured man—and his actions proved it. He knelt beside the man and treated his wounds. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to the nearest inn and paid the innkeeper to take care of him for as long as needed.

After telling the story, Jesus turned to the Jewish legal expert and asked him the simple question: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The man responded, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus, in a nutshell, told him, “That’s what God means when he tells you to love your neighbor. Go and do the same thing that the Samaritan did.”

A marvelous insight can be gleaned from this parable. In the words of Chuck Swindoll: “What you ARE determines what you SEE, and what you SEE determines what you DO.” In the parable, all three men saw the half-dead man on the side of the road. But why didn’t the first two men do anything to help him? Because what we do is determined by what we see. And when they saw the man on the side of the road, they saw an inconvenience, a waste of their precious time, a blemish on their ceremonial purity.

And why did they see the man that way? Because of what they were. They were religious snobs. Their religion was all head and no heart. When their religion really could make a difference in someone’s life, they took a pass. The priest and Levite didn’t DO the right thing, because they didn’t SEE the hurting man through the eyes of Jesus. And they didn’t SEE the hurting man through the eyes of Jesus because they were not followers of Jesus. What you are determines what you see, and what you see determines what you do.

So, let me ask you: What are you? Are you a new creation in Christ? If so, you will see people as Jesus sees them. You will see them as his favorite creation, in need of his love—no matter who they are, no matter what they look like, no matter how undeserving they might seem. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ you will see every man, woman and child as your neighbor, someone who is fair game for Christ’s mercy and compassion and love to be extended through you. Like the Good Samaritan, you and I must see people the way Jesus sees people, because of what we are: faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.

The Invisible War

“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”

– Luke 11:23

Back in the mid-1980s, Christian author Frank Peretti published a novel that rattled a lot of Christians—including me. The novel, “This Present Darkness,” is set in the small college town of Ashton. In the story, the chief editor of the local newspaper and the pastor of the town’s struggling church discover something very unnerving: Ashton is a ground zero for a flood of demonic activity. Thousands of demons are flying overhead and lurking in shadows, steering the course of events in their little town. Like puppeteers, these demons are pulling nonChristians’ strings to get them to do exactly what Satan wants them to do.

In one scene I don’t think I’ll ever forget, a demon hovers over someone’s head, sticks his bony little finger through his skull, and stirs his thoughts. As a teenager, that image just about gave me nightmares. In his book, Frank Peretti shared vivid and imaginative ideas of what demonic activity might look like in the invisible realm. And even though it was a fictional story, it opened a lot of Christians’ minds to the reality of spiritual warfare. 

Jesus understood spiritual warfare better than anyone. At the very beginning of his ministry, freshly baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus went mano-a-mano with Satan himself. He spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert battling Satan’s temptations, overcoming every one of them with the Word of God lifted up in prayer. Over the next three years of his earthly ministry, Jesus encountered demons time and time again. And in Luke 11:23, Jesus makes it clear that it is impossible to be on the fence in spiritual warfare: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”

In verses 24-26, Jesus tells of a demon who, for whatever reason, vacates a man’s soul. The demon wanders the desert looking for rest and doesn’t find it. So, he decides to return to the man he left. “When [the demon] arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order” (v. 25). In other words, the man had cleaned up his act since the demon left him. Perhaps he got off drugs, stopped cheating on his wife, and got himself a steady job. But his soul was empty because he still hadn’t invited the Spirit of Jesus Christ into his life.

In the parable, Jesus continues: “Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first” (vs. 25-26). In other words, the demon said to himself, “Easy smeezy! I’ll grab seven of my buddies, and the eight of us will have no problem storming the gates to this man’s soul and moving right back in.” The demons did just that, and as time passed, the man’s condition was worse than ever. What happened? Well, let me share three lessons that William Barclay draws from Jesus’ illustration:

#1: You can’t leave a man’s soul EMPTY. In our pride we think we have so much willpower against Satan’s attacks. We think we can sit on the sidelines of the great spiritual war and not take sides. We think we can leave our souls empty. But we can’t. If we don’t freely choose to join Jesus’ team and ask him to fill our hearts, whether we like it or not, Satan will drag us onto his team, and he will fill our hearts. If God is not in the driver’s seat of your life, one way or another, Satan will be in the driver’s seat.

#2: It’s not real religion if it’s nothing but NEGATIVES. The man in Jesus’ illustration thought that getting rid of the demon was all it took to be in a good place. The evil was gone. So, life must be good … right? No. It doesn’t work that way. Good isn’t simply the absence of bad. True religion does include the negative—NOT doing certain things. But it can’t be boiled down to a list of “Thou shalt nots.” Far too many nonChristians in our community have been given the impression that Christianity is just an oppressive list of “don’ts.” But Christianity is so much more. It’s not just about expelling the evil. It’s about being filled with our good Savior and penetrating this world with his mercy and grace and love and goodness.

#3: The best way to avoid evil is to do good. I don’t know about you, but I find that I’m not nearly as mean to people when I’m being nice to people. My actions tend to steer clear of evil when I’m busy doing what is good. My thoughts don’t wander off in depressed or bitter or lustful directions when I’m keeping myself busy doing God’s work. In James 1:27, God’s word tells us, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: To look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

You and I must choose a side: Either Jesus Christ’s side or Satan’s side. And the word of the Lord is this: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” In other words, “Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will come inside you and fill your heart and your soul. And when he does, you will be full of God, and there will be no room for the enemy.” So, choose Jesus. Be filled with Jesus. Obey his word, and you will be blessed.

  

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.

God of the Midnight Emergencies?

“For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” – Luke 11:10

A woman who lived in a remote area of Wales made a big request: She asked the electric company to connect her home to the grid. It required a lot of hard work and a whole lot of money, but she finally convinced them to run power to her house. However, a few months after her power was turned on, the utility company noticed that she had barely used any electricity. They thought there must be something wrong with the hookup, so they sent a meter reader out to investigate. The serviceman came to the door and said to the woman, “We’ve just checked your meter and it doesn’t seem that you’re using much electricity. Is there a problem?” She answered, “Oh no. We’re quite satisfied. We turn the electric lights on every night so we can see to light our gas lamps, and then we switch them off again.”

What an odd thing to do! This woman missed out on many modern conveniences that could have been a big blessing to her and to her family. She had cheap, convenient light at her fingertips, but she only tapped into the power source for a few seconds every day. The same could be said about many Christians when it comes to prayer.

Every Christian believes in prayer. We’ve heard plenty of stories about answered prayer. But we use prayer’s power so sparingly. Perhaps some of us don’t pray very much because we believe God’s going to pretty much do what He’s going to do with or without our prayers. Others of us may not pray much because we view prayer as a last resort—a “Hail Mary” pass—when all else fails.  Still others of us don’t pray very much because we’re too busy or too lazy. We can come up with plenty of reasons for not flipping the prayer switch and tapping into God’s power grid, but none of the reasons are very good.

In Luke 11, Jesus tells his followers a parable to illustrate the importance of prayer. He tells about a man who has an unexpected midnight visitor—a friend who arrives tired and hungry from a long journey. The man has no food to offer his visitor, so he knocks on his neighbor’s door and asks for three loaves of bread. But the neighbor responds: “Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything” (v. 7).  However, in the end, Jesus says, “Though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs” (v. 8).

Now, some readers of this parable might assume that since the man who pounds on his friend’s door represents you and me, the sleeping friend must represent God.  But Jesus makes it clear that God is nothing like the sleeping, reluctant friend. You see, unlike the sleeping friend, our heavenly Father is not a reluctant giver. The reluctant friend feels inconvenienced by his friend’s request. But God never feels inconvenienced by His sons’ and daughters’ requests. The reluctant friend basically says to his friend at the door, “You screwed up by being unprepared for your friend’s midnight visit. It’s not MY problem!”  But God delights in sharing our problems, even when it’s our fault. Finally, the reluctant friend eventually does the right thing for selfish reasons—he wants to get back to sleep. But God does the right thing because He loves us.

Jesus simply says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (vs. 9-10). I’d like you to ask yourself: Do these verses work both ways in my relationship with God? In all honesty, most of us would answer, “No.”  God ASKS us to speak for Him and do certain things for Him, but so often we don’t do it.  God SEEKS followers who will stand in the gap between our godless culture and the gates of Heaven and lead others back to Christ. God seeks followers like these, but quite often He doesn’t find them.  God KNOCKS on our hearts’ doors, asking us to let Him come in and spend quality time with us, but like the church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:20), so often we refuse to answer the door.

God comes our way asking, seeking and knocking, and so often—just like the sleeping friend—we turn Him away.  But thankfully, God is not like us. If we go to our Father and ask, we will receive. If we go to our Father and seek, we will find. And if we go our Father and knock, the door will be opened.

Friends, God is NOT a reluctant Giver. He is a loving, gracious, generous Giver. He delights in hearing and answering our prayers. He delights in meeting our needs when we bring our needs to Him. Don’t just go to God for the midnight emergencies. Go to your Father in Heaven every day, throughout the day with your needs and your requests. He will hear you and He will answer you. Now, will you do the same for Him?

Dane Davis is the Lead Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville and the author of "Holy Huldah: Lessons You Should Never Forget from Bible Characters You've Never Heard Of." For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com, and join us for our Worship Celebration Sundays at 10 a.m.