Reward Or Loss

 

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

 

Fortunately, salvation is by grace, through faith, and we do not doubt that even in the dark ages many were saved in spite of their blind leaders and their limited knowledge.

However, we fear that the spiritual leaders of our day will fare little better than the leaders of their day when they appear at the Judgment Seat of Christ, for they have certainly not taken heed to build according to the plans and specifications committed to Paul as God’s appointed “masterbuilder” of the Church (I Corinthians 3:10).

Just think a moment. Is the Church today mostly composed of “gold, silver and precious stones” (morally and spiritually), or of “wood, hay and stubble” (I Corinthians 3:12)? Surely many a man who enjoys prominence and popularity today will weep in that day to see his works go up in flames, as it were (I Corinthians 3:13). It will be a dreadful thing to “suffer loss” when the rewards for Christian service are given out (Ver. 15).

Christian ministers, missionaries, evangelists, Bible teachers, we appeal to you in behalf of a stricken Church. They are God’s building — we are the builders (Vers. 9,10). “We are laborers together with God.” What a calling! Paul, as an instructed “masterbuilder,” has given us the plans and specifications in his epistles. We should be intelligent workmen; workmen whom God can approve, who will not need to be ashamed when the divine Building Inspector examines our workmanship.

There is only one way. Take your hand off the public pulse (Galatians 1:10), cease giving so much attention to organizing and advertising — and compromising — and begin to diligently, prayerfully obey II Timothy 2:15:

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.”

We will not always be praised for teaching the Word of God, rightly divided, but God’s blessing is worth far more than human acclaim.

 

 

 

The Father Is Made of None

by A.W. Tozer

We naturally and correctly think of man as a work wrought by the divine Intelligence. He is both created and made. How he was created lies undisclosed among the secrets of God; how he was brought from not-being to being, from no-thing to something is not known and may never be known to any but the One who brought him forth. How God made him, however, is less of a secret, and while we know only a small portion of the whole truth, we do know that man possesses a body, a soul, and a spirit; we know that he has memory, reason, will, intelligence, sensation, and we know that to give these meaning he has the wondrous gift of consciousness. We know, too, that these, together with various qualities of temperament, compose his total human self. These are gifts from God arranged by infinite wisdom, notes that make up the score of creation’s loftiest symphony, threads that compose the master tapestry of the universe.

But in all this we are thinking creature-thoughts and using creature-words to express them. Neither such thoughts nor such words are appropriate to the Deity. “The Father is made of none,” says the Athanasian Creed, “neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son: not made nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” God exists in Himself and of Himself. His being he owes to no one. His substance is indivisible. He has no parts but is single in His unitary being.

The doctrine of the divine unity means not only that there is but one God; it means also that God is simple, uncomplex, one with Himself. The harmony of His being is the result not of a perfect balance of parts but of the absence of parts. Between His attributes no contradiction can exist. He need not suspend one to exercise another, for in Him all His attributes are one. All of God does all that God does; He does not divide Himself to perform a work, but works in the total unity of His being.

Verse

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Psalm 139:6

Thought

Our creature-thoughts and our creature-words are inappropriate for expressing what the Creator is like. God is neither created nor begotten, but He exists in Himself and of Himself.

Prayer

Can we ever understand what You are like, Father? Help us to embrace the truth of the divine unity.

Creator and Created

by A.W. Tozer

Though God in this threefold revelation has provided answers to our questions concerning Him, the answers by no means lie on the surface. They must be sought by prayer, by long meditation on the written Word, and by earnest and well-disciplined labor. However brightly the light may shine, it can be seen only by those who are spiritually prepared to receive it. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

If we would think accurately about the attributes of God, we must learn to reject certain words that are sure to come crowding into our minds—such words as trait, characteristic, quality—words which are proper and necessary when we are considering created beings but altogether inappropriate when we are thinking about God. We must break ourselves of the habit of thinking of the Creator as we think of His creatures. It is probably impossible to think without words, but if we permit ourselves to think with the wrong words, we shall soon be entertaining erroneous thoughts; for words, which are given us for the expression of thought, have a habit of going beyond their proper bounds and determining the content of thought. “As nothing is more easy than to think,” says Thomas Traherne, “so nothing is more difficult than to think well.” If we ever think well, it should be when we think of God.

A man if the sum of his parts and his character the sum of the traits that compose it. These traits vary from man to man and may from time to time vary from themselves within the same man. Human character is not constant because the traits or qualities that constitute it are unstable. These come and go, burn low or glow with great intensity throughout our lives. Thus a man who is kind and considerate at 30 may be cruel and churlish at 50. Such a change is possible because man is made; he is in a very real sense a composition; he is the sum of the traits that make up his character.

Verse

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8

Thought

Changes in our character are possible because we are created beings; God’s character is constant and unchanging because He is the Creator.

Prayer

Lord, help us to think well when we think of You.

 

 

 

Thanksgiving

 

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

 

God’s verdict upon the pagan world is that “they are without excuse, because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful…” (Romans 1:20,21).

The Psalmist, on the other hand, declares:

“IT IS A GOOD THING TO GIVE THANKS UNTO THE LORD, AND TO SING PRAISES UNTO THY NAME, O MOST HIGH:

“TO SHOW FORTH THY LOVINGKINDNESS IN THE MORNING. AND THY FAITHFULNESS EVERY NIGHT” (Psalm 92:1,2).

Believers today have even more to be thankful for than did the Psalmist, for we can rejoice in what God has done for us through Christ and His redeeming work. Thus Paul, by divine inspiration, speaks of…

“GIVING THANKS UNTO THE FATHER, WHO HATH MADE US MEET [FIT] TO BE PARTAKERS OF THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS IN LIGHT:

“WHO HATH DELIVERED US FROM THE POWER OF DARKNESS, AND HATH TRANSLATED US INTO THE KINGDOM OF HIS DEAR SON” (Colossians 1:12,13).

It is because of this “deliverance” that the humblest believer can cry with Paul: “Thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ!” (II Corinthians 2:14) and “Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (I Corinthians 15:57). How appropriate, then, are the following exhortations:

“In everything give thanks” (I Thessalonians 5:18) and “By [Christ], therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise… giving thanks to His name” (Hebrews 13:15).

“For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God” (II Corinthians 4:15).

Most of all, “THANKS BE UNTO GOD FOR HIS UNSPEAKABLE GIFT,” our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! (II Corinthians 9:15).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faith In The Right Person

 

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

 

Abraham’s faith in God was strong. When God called him to forsake his family, friends and country, he obeyed and “went forth, not knowing whither he went.” When God promised to multiply his seed as the stars of heaven, he believed it, though childless. When, in his old age, God promised that he would still have a son by ninety-year-old Sarah, he believed it even though he had waited so long, seemingly in vain. When God promised to give his seed the land in which he had sojourned, he believed it, though all reason argued against it. When God asked him to offer in sacrifice the son born so late in life, the son upon whom all the promises depended, he obeyed, concluding that it must be God’s plan to raise him from the dead!

Such was Abraham’s faith in God! Three times this is emphasized in Romans 4 alone: He was “not weak in faith” (Ver. 19); he “staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief,” but was “strong in faith” (Ver. 20).

But it was not the strength of Abraham’s faith that saved him; it was the fact that the object of his faith was God (See again Genesis 15:6). He had placed his faith in the right Person. His faith became “strong” only because he had heard and believed God in the first place.

“For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness,” and thus “to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:3,5).

The simplest, humblest believer, who ever so feebly commits himself to God and His Word, is “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).

 

 

 

 

 

God Has Provided Answers

by A.W. Tozer

What is God like? What kind of God is He? How may we expect Him to act toward us and toward all created things? Such questions are not merely academic. They touch the far-in reaches of the human spirit, and their answers affect life and character and destiny. When asked in reverence and their answers sought in humility, these are questions that cannot but be pleasing to our Father which art in heaven. “For he willeth that we be occupied in knowing and loving,” wrote Julian of Norwich, “till the time that we shall be fulfilled in heaven. . . . For of all things the beholding and the loving of the Maker maketh the soul to seem less in his own sigh, and most filleth him with reverent dread and true meekness; with plenty of charity for his fellow Christians.”

To our questions God has provided answers; not all the answers, certainly, but enough to satisfy our intellects and ravish our hearts. These answers He has provided in nature, in the Scriptures, and in the person of His Son.

The idea that God reveals Himself in the creation is not held with much vigor by modern Christians; but it is, nevertheless, set forth in the inspired Word, especially in the writings of David and Isaiah in the Old Testament and in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans in the New. In the Holy Scriptures the revelation is clearer:

 

The heavens declare Thy glory, Lord,

In every star Thy wisdom shines;

But when our eyes behold Thy Word,

We read Thy name in fairer lines.

Isaac Watts

 

And it is a sacred and indispensable part of the Christian message that the full sun-blaze of revelation came at the incarnation when the Eternal Word became flesh to dwell among us.

Verse

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1

Thought

God graciously provides answers enough to satisfy our intellects in His creation, in His Word, and in His Son.

Prayer

Father, we praise Your name and rejoice with Your creation, with the skies, the stars, and the sun as they proclaim Your glory.