Truth for Today: A Daily Touch of God's Grace
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Long respected as one of today's most knowledgeable Bible teachers, John MacArthur has never had a book that offers his insights in such an easily accessible manner. Be prepared to be encouraged, challenged, energized, and changed as MacArthur offers seasoned wisdom on different passages of Scripture. Perfect for daily readings, this unique gift book is destined to be a treasured classic for years to come.
John F. MacArthur
Widely known for his thorough, candid approach to teaching God's Word, John MacArthur is a popular author and conference speaker. He has served as pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, since 1969. John and his wife, Patricia, have four married children and fifteen grandchildren. John's pulpit ministry has been extended around the globe through his media ministry, Grace to You, and its satellite offices in seven countries. In addition to producing daily radio programs for nearly two thousand English and Spanish radio outlets worldwide, Grace to You distributes books, software, and digital recordings by John MacArthur. John is chancellor of The Master's University and Seminary and has written hundreds of books and study guides, each one biblical and practical. Bestselling titles include The Gospel According to Jesus, Twelve Ordinary Men, Twelve Extraordinary Women, Slave, and The MacArthur Study Bible, a 1998 ECPA Gold Medallion recipient.
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Truth for Today - John F. MacArthur
PREFACE
I’ll never forget a man I once met while hiking through the mountains of northern California. He was a graduate of Boston University who lived in an overturned Frigidare box by a stream. After I introduced myself to him, he described his frustrating search for the meaning of life.
Well, have you found the answers?
I asked.
No,
he replied, but I’ve put myself into a situation where I don’t ask the questions.
Unfortunately, that’s the best human wisdom can do.
The last century produced an information explosion unparalleled in human history. Yet modern knowledge has been unable to shed any new light on the most basic spiritual questions facing the human race. That’s exactly how the Bible describes mankind in the end times: always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth
(2 Tim. 3:7).
Man has solved incredibly difficult problems in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, microbiology, and even space travel. But the true meaning of life stubbornly eludes those whose methods of pursuit are purely rational. They end up totally puzzled about life, death, God, man, sin, heaven, hell, love, joy, and peace.
The problem is that spiritual answers cannot be deduced by human reason alone (1 Cor. 2:14). It’s not that spiritual truth is irrational or illogical, but that human wisdom is defective, because it’s tainted by man’s sinfulness, and unable to perceive the things of God.
That is why the Bible is so important. It gives us the answers we can’t find on our own. It is God’s Word to mankind. Scripture is divinely revealed truth that fills the vacuum of spiritual ignorance in all of us.
So in the year ahead, I hope you’ll take a daily dip into the pool of God’s truth, and that you’ll be touched by His grace every time you do.
JOHN MACARTHUR
JANUARY: SalvationJANUARY 1
THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation.
ROMANS 1:16
People want to change. All advertising is based on the presupposition that people want things different from the way they are. They want to look better, feel better, think better, and live better. They want to change their lives but, except from an external standpoint, they are unable to do so.
Only the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to change people and deliver them from sin, from Satan, from judgment, from death, and from hell. Acts 4:12 says, Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
And that name is Jesus Christ.
So God’s Word, which is all about Jesus Christ, can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We are sinful and unable to remedy our condition, but from God comes the incredible, limitless power that can transform our lives.
JANUARY 2
A SLAVE FOR CHRIST
Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ.
1 CORINTHIANS 4:1
The apostle Paul was a servant
of Christ. It was a role he chose out of love, not fear.
There were perhaps millions of slaves in the Roman Empire. For the most part, they were treated not as persons but as objects. If a master wanted to kill a slave, he could do so without fear of punishment. Though it was a negative term to the Romans, the word slave meant dignity, honor, and respect to the Hebrews, and the Greeks considered it a term of humility. As a servant of Christ, then, Paul paradoxically finds himself both exalted and debased. This is the ambivalence every representative of Jesus Christ must face.
When I think of the honor I’ve been given to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, I am sometimes overwhelmed. There is no higher calling in life than to proclaim the gospel from the pulpit and to be able to teach the Word of God under the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet there is also a paradox that requires a minister of Christ to realize he does not deserve to minister. He must have the proper perspective of being an unworthy slave who has the incomprehensible privilege of proclaiming the gospel.
JANUARY 3
NO MORE BAD NEWS
Separated to the gospel of God.
ROMANS 1:1
Thousands of babies are born every day into a world filled with bad news. The term bad news has become a colloquialism to describe our era.
Why is there so much bad news? It’s simple. The bad news that occurs on a larger scale is only the multiplication of what is occurring on an individual level. The power that makes for bad news is sin.
With so much bad news, can there really be any good news? Yes! The good news is that sin can be dealt with. You don’t have to be selfish. Guilt and anxiety can be alleviated. There is meaning to life and hope of life after death. The apostle Paul says in Romans 1:1 that the good news is the gospel. It is the good news that man’s sin can be forgiven, guilt can be removed, life can have meaning, and a hopeful future can be a reality.
JANUARY 4
SEPARATION
It is written, Be holy, for I am holy.
1 PETER 1:16
Do you know you cannot serve God unless you are separated? In the Scripture, that word refers to being set apart for a specific task or purpose.
The Lord said to Moses, You shall offer up a cake of the first of your ground meal as a heave offering
(Num. 15:20). God wanted the firstfruits of the land to be set apart to honor Him.
The Lord also said, I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine
(Lev. 20:26). God took the nation of Israel and separated them from all other nations for His glory.
In each of these passages in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament), the word refers to separation in the fullest sense. The apostle Paul knew that once he was called as an apostle, he would be disconnected from his past. When Paul was the most ardent of Pharisee, he was set apart for—or separated to—the traditions of the Jewish people (Phil. 3:5). Now he could claim to be a Pharisee separated to the gospel of God.
Are you separate from your former life?
JANUARY 5
MANKIND’S BOX
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
COLOSSIANS 2:9
If we were to think of this world as a time-space dimension, then a closed box could represent it, with God outside of the box. It is impossible for mankind to escape the box because, by definition, the natural cannot enter into the supernatural. That which is confined to time and space cannot escape into eternity and infinity.
Because there is something within man that longs to know what is outside the box, he invents deities into existence, which is how religions proliferate. Different religions become an extension of man’s desire to escape his box, but man’s longing to transcend the box cannot be overcome because he is confined to the box by his very nature.
Is there a way to escape this box? Yes, the good news is there is a way, and it’s through Christ. Christianity acknowledges that you can’t get out of your box but proclaims that God has invaded the box from the outside. Jesus Christ has entered into your world to show you how you can dwell with God forever. Won’t you accept His invitation?
JANUARY 6
THE INCOMPARABLE CHRIST
He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
COLOSSIANS 1:17
Jesus Christ is the most incomparable personality of all human history.
Socrates taught forty years, Plato fifty, and Aristotle forty. Jesus’ public ministry lasted less than three years, yet the influence of His life far outweighs the combined 130 years of the three greatest philosophers of all antiquity.
Jesus never painted a picture, yet some of the finest paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and many other artists found in Him their inspiration.
Jesus did not write poetry, but Dante, Milton, and scores of the world’s greatest poets have been inspired by Him like no other. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that the name of Jesus is not so much written as ploughed into the history of this world.
Jesus wrote no music, yet Haydn, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, Mendelssohn, and a myriad of others reached the highest perfection of melody in compositions about Him.
Jesus has affected human society like no other. The incomparable Christ is the good news. And what makes it such good news is that man is so undeserving but that God is so gracious.
JANUARY 7
A FEW WORDS
Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
2 PETER 1:21
Only 297 words are required to sum up in English all of God’s moral law in the Ten Commandments. God distilled it even more when He said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself ’
(Matt. 22:37–39). Only sixty-five words make up the definitive teaching on prayer—the Lord’s Prayer—in Matthew 6:9–13.
Man doesn’t have that capacity for essential brevity. There once was a governmental study to regulate the price of cabbage that ran over twenty-six thousand words!
Thank God for the provision of His profound Word.
JANUARY 8
FULFILLING THE LAW
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
MATTHEW 5:48
Jesus faced much opposition during His ministry when He didn’t agree with contemporary Jewish theology (Matt. 15:1–3). Because it was hypocritical, He denied the Pharisees’ so-called devotion.
Many in His day were saying, Is Jesus saying new truth? Is He really speaking for God? He doesn’t say what the Pharisees say. He, in fact, says the opposite of what we’re taught.
Jesus said, Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill
(Matt. 5:17). Jesus did not condemn Old Testament law, but He did condemn the tradition that had been built up around it. The religious leaders had so perverted God’s law that Jesus declared, I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven
(v. 20).
Whose righteousness are you depending on? Your own or Christ’s?
JANUARY 9
OUR CONSISTENT GOSPEL
He promised [the gospel] before through His Prophets in the Holy Scriptures.
ROMANS 1:2
Did you know that the Old Testament is completely consistent with the New? That’s because the good news is old, not new. The Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, or anywhere in between, is all about the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said that the Scriptures give testimony about Him (John 6:39). In speaking to men on the road to Emmaus, Jesus said, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself
(Luke 24:25–27).
Why is that important for you today? So you can be confident that the Scripture holds God’s promise of good news in Christ.
JANUARY 10
THE HISTORICAL JESUS
God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
1 JOHN 4:9
Many people doubt whether Jesus ever really existed, but many historians have written about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Around A.D. 114, the Roman historian, Tacitus, wrote that the founder of the Christian religion, Jesus Christ, was put to death by Pontius Pilate in the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius (Annals 15.44).
Pliny the Younger wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan on the subject of Christ and Christians (Letters 10.96–97).
In A.D. 90, the Jewish historian Josephus penned a short biographical note on Jesus: Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call Him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ
(Antiquities 18.63).
The Talmud refers to Jesus of Nazareth (Sanhedrin 43a, Abodah Zerah 16b–17a).
Jesus was a man in history. And His claims were true. Do you still doubt His ability to save you?
JANUARY 11
THE AFFIRMATION
OF GOD’S SON
Declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
ROMANS 1:4
Jesus Christ had to be more than a man; He also had to be God. If Jesus were only a man, even the best of men, He could not have saved believers from their sin. If He were even the right man from the seed of David, but not God, He could not have withstood the punishment of God the Father at the cross and risen from the dead. He could not have overcome Satan and the world but would have been conquered as all men are conquered.
If there was ever any question that Jesus was the Son of God, His resurrection from the dead should end it. He had to be man to reach us, but He had to be God to lift us up. When God raised Christ from the dead, He affirmed that what He said was true.
As clearly as the horizon divides the earth from the sky, so the resurrection divides Jesus from the rest of humanity. Jesus Christ is God in human flesh.
JANUARY 12
A TREASURE STORE
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
EPHESIANS 1:3
There is no way to comprehend the riches God has provided for those who love His Son. The treasures He has prepared are infinite. Jesus said, The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field
(Matt. 13:44). The apostle Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah when he says, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him
(1 Cor. 2:9).
The good news is, if we love the Son of God, we inherit all the riches of the Father. If we believe in Christ, we have treasure beyond imagination.
JANUARY 13
RAISED THROUGH THE SPIRIT
God does not give the Spirit by measure. The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.
JOHN 3:34–35
Jesus took on a role requiring voluntary submission, and He did the will of the Father through the power of the Spirit. That is an amazing act of love and humility from One who is fully God and always will be throughout eternity.
It is important to recognize the Spirit’s work in the ministry and resurrection of Jesus because it indicates that the entire Trinity was involved in the redemption of mankind. The greatest affirmation that Jesus is who He claimed to be is that the Father raised the Son through the agency of the Holy Spirit.
JANUARY 14
A MYSTERIOUS UNION
Taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
PHILIPPIANS 2:7
The humanity and deity of Christ is a mysterious union we can never fully understand. But the Bible emphasizes both.
Luke 23:39–43 provides a good example. At the cross, . . . one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, ‘If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.’ But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when you come into Your Kingdom.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’
In His humanness, Jesus was a victim, mercilessly hammered to a cross after being spat upon, mocked, and humiliated. But in His deity, He promised the thief on the cross eternal life, as only God can.
JANUARY 15
GRACE FROM THE KING
Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
ROMANS 3:24
Every believer receives the grace of God as a result of responding to the good news. And the good news is that salvation is by grace.
The apostle Paul said, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast
(Eph. 2:8–9). The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all people. It is offered totally apart from anything we could ever do to receive God’s favor. It is the unmerited favor of God, who in His mercy and loving-kindness grants us salvation as a gift. All we have to do is simply respond by believing in His Son.
We enter the kingdom of God only by the grace of God. There is no place for self-congratulations or human achievement. Remember to thank God for granting you such a gracious salvation.
JANUARY 16
UNDESERVED FAVOR
Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.
ROMANS 5:20
Salvation does not come by confirmation, communion, baptism, church membership, church attendance, trying to keep the Ten Commandments, or living out the Sermon on the Mount. It does not come by giving to charity or even by believing that there is a God. It does not come by simply being moral and respectable. Salvation does not even come by claiming to be a Christian. Salvation comes only when we receive by faith the gift of God’s grace. Hell will be full of people who tried to reach heaven some other way.
The apostle Paul said, The law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord
(Rom. 5:20–21). The first provision of the gospel is grace, which is neither earned nor deserved.
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse said, Love that gives upward is worship; love that goes outward is affection; love that stoops is grace.
God has stooped to give us grace. Will you receive it?
JANUARY 17
GET IN THE GAME
Run in such a way that you might win.
1 CORINTHIANS 9:24
Because I was athletic