Author: BTP

“But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

The believers in Philippi were not wealthy like the Corinthians. They were relatively poor, and in writing to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul refers to “their deep poverty.” Yet they had apparently collected a large amount of money and sent it to Paul, who was in prison in Rome at this time. Paul appreciated this very much, as he was in need of help, but he knew that they had really given more than they could afford to give. It was not the first time they had sent money to Paul, for he reminds them that when he was in Thessalonica, they had sent help to him twice (Philippians 4:16). It had been a real sacrifice for them, but Paul assures them that the Lord would supply all their need “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

There is a difference in someone’s supplying our need out of his riches, and supplying our need according to his riches. If a wealthy man helped us “out of” his riches, he might give us enough to meet our need. But if he helped us “according to” his riches, he would give much more than we needed. I remember a young couple who received many wedding gifts, some from average people, and some from rich people. In particular, two rich people each gave them a gift. One gave a very small gift, smaller even than most of the average people gave; he gave “out of” his riches. But the other gave a large gift, larger than almost anybody else. He gave “according to” his riches.

God does not promise to give us everything we want, for it might not be good for us. But He loves to give, and when we use our money for the Lord, He often gives back “according to” His riches. The Apostle Paul was sure that the Lord would do this for the Philippians who had been so generous with him when he was in prison.

This verse has been a wonderful encouragement to many people who were in need and did not know what to do. But the Lord knows our need and has promised to supply it. He keeps His promise!

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

During our day at school or at work, we may have to think about many things. We have to do our schoolwork well, and we have to do our work well. But what do we think about when our minds are free? Some people think about how hard their life is. Others think about the wrong things that have been done to them. Others get angry because they think the world is very unfair. Sometimes angry people think of ways they can “get even” with those who have insulted them or done some kind of harm to them.

Here the Apostle Paul tells the Philippians that they are to think of good things — things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. In the world today, we often hear things that are not true, for telling lies has become rather common. We also hear a lot of things that are not pure, for the natural heart of man is not pure, and what flows out of our sinful hearts is very impure. We may also hear things that, although they are true, are not “of good report.” This means that some of the wrong things done in this world do not need to be spread all over for everyone to hear. The Bible says, “It is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret” (Ephesians 5:12). Even if they are true, we can defile our minds by speaking and thinking about evil things.

We do not have to think about every kind of thing that comes into our minds. Our minds can be controlled, and we can push wrong thoughts out. In Romans 12:2, we are told, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Since we have a new life in Christ, we can renew our minds by turning them to think about better things. It is like hitting the “refresh” button on your computer! It is important to make the effort to do that!

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to Him” (2 Timothy 1:12 JND).

“Keep, by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us, the good deposit entrusted” (2 Timothy 1:14 JND).

Probably at least some of you have a bank account, and are able to deposit money into it from time to time. It is a safe place in which to keep your money, and then you can go and take it out later, if you need it to buy things. You expect the bank to keep it safely for you, so that no one can steal it.

Here in our verses today we have two deposits — one which we give to the Lord to keep, and one which He gives us to keep. When we live for the Lord, and honor Him in our lives, then we are depositing things to our “heavenly account.” They are the things for which the Lord will be able to give us a reward in a coming day. They are things that we do for Him. No one can ever steal that deposit, and the Apostle Paul, who wrote these verses to Timothy, was confident that the Lord would keep that deposit for him.

But then the Lord gives you and me a deposit to keep. When we learn things from the Word of God about the Lord Jesus and learn the truth that He has given us, then this is part of our deposit. The Holy Spirit teaches us these things, and we are to hold onto them. But we can hold onto them only if we practice them in our lives. It is not enough to know them in our heads; we must live by them. If we do not practice those things, then we easily lose them. Sad to say, some Christians give up the things they have learned from the Bible, because it makes their life easier in this world. But then they will lose part of their reward, for part of that deposit will not be there anymore. How important it is to hold onto what the Lord has taught us, and to use it in our lives!

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

About 500 years ago, during a period of time called “the Reformation,” an old man who lived in Europe lay dying at home. For over 1000 years, this world had lost the knowledge that the Lord Jesus had finished the work on the cross to put away our sins. Most men and women lived in “darkness” and fear. In those days, the precious truth of the gospel was just being brought back to us, through men like Martin Luther, William Farel, John Knox, and others. The dying man was quite peaceful, for He knew the Lord Jesus as His Savior. But his family who were gathered around him did not have the same assurance, for they were accustomed to being afraid to die. Finally one of them said, “Father, what are you going to do, if you get to the gate of heaven, and God will not let you in?” The old man smiled, and simply said, “If God will not let me into heaven, He will have to put His own Son outside first.”

At first the family were horrified, for they had never heard such a thing before. But the old man was right! The believer in the Lord Jesus is “in Christ,” and this means that he or she is just as fit for heaven as the Lord Jesus Himself. If the Lord Jesus has a right to be in heaven, then we do too, for we are seen as being in Him.

This is a most wonderful truth, and it was given specially to the apostle Paul by the Lord Jesus, after He rose from the dead and went back to heaven. This means that if we are truly saved, you and I can never lose our salvation. We can have perfect peace about the future, for if the Lord Jesus is up there in heaven, we will be there with Him someday soon!

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“In Him [the Lord Jesus] is no sin” (1 John 3:5).

“Christ … who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:21-22).

“For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Here we have three verses, telling us that there was no sin in the Lord Jesus, that He did no sin, and that He knew no sin. Yet it also says that He was “made sin” for us. What does this mean?

The Lord Jesus was absolutely sinless. Not only did He never commit sin, but He did not have a sinful nature. That is why John says, “In Him is no sin.” He could not sin, for He did not have the capacity to do so. A sinful thought never entered His heart. If this had not been true, He could not have been the One to bear our sins.

However, when He was on the cross and bore the sins of those who would believe, He was “made sin,” as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:21. This means that God took our sins and laid them on the Lord Jesus, so that during those three hours of darkness on the cross, God treated Him as if He were the sinner. Those sins were on Him, and then He suffered the punishment from God for those sins. It was this prospect that made the Lord Jesus sweat “great drops of blood” in the Garden of Gethsemane, for as a sinless Man, He hated sin. Yet He was made sin for us, and God had to forsake Him because of this.

Perhaps we can illustrate it this way. Suppose my son had a friend who had gotten his clothes filthy dirty, and we did not want him to come into our home like that. But suppose my son said, “Change clothes with me, and then you may go in wearing my clean clothes.” But then my son would have to wear his friend’s filthy clothes, and could not come into the house. That is what the Lord Jesus has done for us. But of course the Lord Jesus did not remain with sin on Him. He bore all the judgment, and then died. When He cried out, “It is finished,” those sins were all gone, never to be seen again.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“So Moses the servant of the Lord died … and Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deuteronomy 34:5, 7).

We could say many more things about Moses, for his was a long and interesting life. However, we want to leave room to speak about other people, so let us pass on to see how he died. We read here that he was 120 years old, yet his eyes were not dim, and he still had the strength he had when he was younger. At that age he was able to climb up to the top of Mt. Nebo (it is about 800 meters high, which is over 2600 feet) and view the whole land of Canaan. If you read the description of what he was able to see, it seems that the Lord allowed him to see about 100 miles both north and south. This is amazing! In order to see that far, you would normally have to be in a plane, about 30,000 feet above the earth, which is about 9,000 meters.

Then, on the top of that mountain, he died, and the Lord buried him. No one knows where he is buried except the Lord, but we know that he appeared on the mount of transfiguration in the New Testament, along with the prophet Elijah. You can read about this in Matthew 17.

Probably none of us will live to be 120 years old, and when we get older, we tend to lose the good eyesight we had when we were young. Most of us wear glasses by the time we are middle aged. Also we get weaker, and find it harder to run fast, do hard physical work, or climb up steep hills. But the Lord is able to give us the strength to do whatever He wants us to do.

Although he was only 55 years old, the well-known gospel preacher George Whitefield was not well. He had a wonderful gift from God in being able to speak loudly. He could preach to crowds of 30,000 in the open air, and everyone could hear him, even though there was no loudspeaker or microphone! He preached for the last time in an open field near Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the year 1770. Apparently he preached a powerful sermon, and died the next day. The Lord gave him the strength for that last sermon. He will give you and me the strength to do His will, whatever our age.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“And he (Pharaoh) said unto them, Go, serve the Lord your God: but who are they that shall go? And Moses said, We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go” (Exodus 10:8-9).

When Moses and Aaron began to speak to Pharaoh, telling him that he must let the people of Israel go, they told Pharaoh that they were going to sacrifice to the Lord in the wilderness. As we know, Pharaoh consistently refused to let the people go, in spite of the terrible plagues that the Lord brought upon the land of Egypt. Finally Pharaoh said that he would let the people go, but proposed various conditions to Moses and Aaron, as to who should go, and how far they should go, and whether their cattle should go, etc.

In our verse today, we see that Pharaoh asks the question as to who would go. Moses clearly said to him that they must all go — men, women, and children, as well as their cattle. If we were to read the following verses, we would find that Pharaoh wanted only the men to go, and leave their children in Egypt. This was a very bad suggestion, and Moses quite properly refused to consider it. Then the Lord allowed further plagues on the land of Egypt. Eventually Pharaoh did let the people go, but not until the firstborn of every family that was not protected by the blood on the door, had been killed on the night of the Passover.

We have seen before that Egypt is a type of the world around us, that does not know the Lord. This world may think it is all right for Christian parents and older ones to worship the Lord, and to be separate from this world, but the world wants to get you younger ones, if it can. You have energy and vigor, and the world wants you! Satan is now the god and prince of this world, and if he can attract young people, he is very pleased. He wants any of us, but he makes a special attempt to snare young people. Be thankful if your parents are like Moses, who will not allow you to be left in Egypt, so to speak. Be thankful if they insist that you go with them to worship and serve the Lord.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? … I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed” (Luke 16:3).

In this chapter we have a story about a steward who had charge of his master’s goods. Evidently he had been misusing them, and in modern language, he was going to be fired. But rather than look at the actual story here, let us look at what the steward said. He recognized that he was not able to do manual work (digging), and he was ashamed to live from the charity of others (begging), so he made some other arrangements. We do not need to be concerned about those other arrangements for now, but only to notice that he knew what kind of work he could do, and what he could not do.

It is a good thing to recognize our natural abilities when we are young, for we each have skills of different kinds. Some are well equipped to work with their hands, and these people often become carpenters, tool and die makers, surgeons, etc. Others are bent toward using their minds to make a living, and these people may become internet technology people, or possibly get into business administration. It is sad that some young people today never seem to find out what they are good at doing; they end up going from one job to another, not liking any of them. I have known young people who spent most of their lives trying to figure out what to do. Others are not motivated to go out and earn their own living at all, and set up their own homes, but prefer to continue living with their parents even as adults. If we have trouble in this, we can ask the Lord to help us, for He loves to guide us in the right way. But we must remember that no job in this world is perfect; they all involve doing things that we may not like doing. This is good training; keep it up and do your best!

When it comes to our spiritual gifts, again, as we have seen, a time of training is often necessary in our lives. We would never think of undertaking a complicated job in natural things without having the proper training. The Lord knows how to put us through situations that train us for what He wants us to do. Often He will give us something to do that is quite simple, and then, as we progress, He leads us on to bigger things. The great thing to remember is that our service for the Lord is for His glory, and not for our own recognition. We must be content to look forward to reward in heaven, and not expect it down here.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“He [God] said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob … Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:6, 10).

Here we have the important message that God had for Moses; it was now time for him to go back to Egypt, to face the new Pharaoh, and to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. But if you read the chapter carefully, you will find that now Moses makes every possible excuse not to go. Forty years before he was ready to go in his own natural strength, but now, after forty years of looking after sheep, he does not want to go, even when the Lord Himself calls him.

First of all, he says, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh?” (vs. 11). He did not feel like a very important person anymore. Then Moses wants to know what name he was to say, when the people might ask him who sent him. The Lord gave him a name suitable for God — “I AM THAT I AM” (vs. 14). Then Moses protested that the people would not believe that God had sent him. (Exodus 4:1). So the Lord graciously gave him two miraculous signs to show them. Then Moses said, “I am not eloquent” (Exodus 4:10), which means that he thought he could not speak well enough. Finally, Moses asked the Lord to send someone else — see Exodus 4:13.

All this is very sad, for when the Lord tells us to do something, He always gives us whatever we need to do it. He will give us the courage, the strength, the right words, the money, the help — whatever we need. But Moses once again was looking at himself, and not at the Lord. At last the Lord tells him that He will send his brother Aaron to speak for him, and Moses agrees to go.

In these incidents in the life of Moses, we see two main difficulties that we as Christians have in serving the Lord. Sometimes we are too eager to go out and do something in our own strength, and this usually happens when we are young. We saw that in Moses when he killed the Egyptian who was mistreating an Israelite. But now, when Moses is eighty years old, we find his doing the opposite — making all kinds of excuses why he should not go and deliver God’s people! It seems that he had become rather timid during his forty years of keeping sheep. Eventually he went, but the Lord became angry when he made so many excuses. It is important for us not to fall into either one of these ways of acting towards the Lord. Let us be ready to accept His training, but be ready to go when He calls us.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed … and God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses” (Exodus 3:2, 4).

This was a very strange sight that Moses saw, for here was a bush on fire, yet it did not burn up. Have you ever seen a fire burning, yet the material being burned did not burn up? No, I am sure you have not, and neither have I. Whenever we make a fire, we have to put wood on it, and after a while, the wood burns up, and we have to add more. But this bush did not burn up. Naturally Moses went over to take a closer look at this unusual sight. When he went over there, the Lord called to him out of the middle of the bush, and repeated his name twice.

This was a very important occasion in Moses’ life, for finally, after forty years, God was going to send him back to Egypt, to speak to Pharaoh, and to deliver His people. But first God had to get Moses’ attention, by having a bush burn, but without burning up. This bush was a picture of the people of Israel. They had been slaves in Egypt for many years, and the hard work they had to do, and the abuse they suffered, was like the fire in the bush. The bush should have burned up, and the people of Israel should not have survived in Egypt either, but God was with them, and He saw to it that they multiplied, in spite of the way the Egyptians treated them.

The people of God today are like that too. All through the history of Christianity, God’s people (those who are saved) have been persecuted, sometimes even killed. Yet the Lord has seen to it that His people were not wiped out; rather they have multiplied in times of persecution. Also, there will come a time when the Lord will come and take us home to be with Himself, and deliver us from this world, just as He delivered His people Israel.

When the Lord spoke to Moses, He reminded him to take off his shoes, for he was now in the Lord’s presence. Moses did so, and also covered his face, for he did not want to look at God. But now the Lord told him that He (God) had seen how difficult it was for His people in Egypt, and that He was going to deliver them.

There are seven people recorded in the Bible, to whom the Lord spoke by calling their names twice. When this happened, it meant that the Lord had something very important to say to them. See if you can find the other six! Here are some hints — three more are in the Old Testament, and three are in the New Testament. One was a young woman.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers