Growing in Grace

“Now His [the Lord Jesus’] parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when He [the Lord Jesus] was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast” (Luke 2:41-42).

We do not know for sure at what age the parents of the Lord Jesus started to take Him up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, but we do know that He went up at the age of twelve. People did not travel much in those days, so it was probably quite an event for children to make that kind of a trip. They likely enjoyed traveling with their friends, for most people probably walked in those days, although some might have had donkeys on which to ride. We know that when the parents of the Lord Jesus started home after the Passover, and did not see their son the Lord Jesus, they just assumed that he was with others in the company, and were not concerned until they had traveled a whole day. While those Jewish people surely appreciated the significance of the Passover, the children probably liked a trip to “the big city” of Jerusalem.

But have you ever thought of what the Lord Jesus must have been thinking as He kept the Passover, even as a boy? Although I am sure that He behaved as a perfect twelve-year-old boy, yet He could say to His parents, when His mother scolded Him a little for staying behind in Jerusalem, “Wist ye not [didn’t you know] that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). As God, He understood perfectly that one day He would be the true Passover. One day He would suffer and die, so that the matter of sin would be settled once and for all. We want to say all this very reverently, but we can only imagine what thoughts must have gone through His heart, even as a boy, as He saw those lambs killed every year. For the Jews, it was celebrating the fact that their firstborns had not been killed on that night back in Moses’ time, when the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. But for the Lord Jesus, all this was also a picture of His death on the cross.

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“For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

When the Israelites kept the Passover, they probably did not realize the full meaning of it. Yes, they knew that if they put the blood on the door, they would be safe inside, and the firstborn in that house would not be killed. Later on, when the Lord gave them the law through Moses, they learned the importance of sacrifices in which blood was shed. However, the full importance of the Passover was not brought out until the New Testament.

As we see in our verse for today, the Apostle Paul could remind those in Corinth that “even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” This shows that the Passover was a picture of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, for He was the true Lamb of God. When John the Baptist first saw the Lord Jesus, He said by inspiration, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). All those lambs that were offered every year when the Passover was kept could not take sin away permanently; they rather looked on to the Lord Jesus, who was the true Passover.

History tells us that at the time the Lord Jesus was here on this earth, the population of the city of Jerusalem was about 55,000 people. However, it is estimated that at Passover time, there were about 180,000 people in the city. They came from many areas around Jerusalem, to keep the Passover there. Can you imagine that number of extra people in the city? They did not have hotels and other accommodation the way we have today, and even today, more than 100,000 extra people coming into a city of that size would make many problems — water, places to stay, toilets, garbage disposal, etc. You can picture it, and smell it! Somehow they all had to find places to sleep at night, and food to eat.

Can you imagine the number of lambs that were slaughtered every year at that time? Every family would have had a lamb, so thousands would have been sacrificed. The narrow lanes of that city would have been crowded with lambs being led along. Yet those sacrifices “can never take away sins” (Hebrews 10:11). But the Lord Jesus, “after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12). The work was done, and God was fully satisfied. His Son was the true Passover.

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“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months … it is the Lord’s passover” (Exodus 12:2, 11).

Probably all of you have heard of the Passover, which the Israelites first kept more than 3,500 years ago. But have you ever thought of where the term “passover” came from? The word teaches us something about how God works in both love and holiness.

The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for about 200 years, and the Egyptians had made life very hard for them. They had been compelled to make bricks for Pharaoh, in order to build treasure cities. There were taskmasters over them who made them work hard, and sometimes those taskmasters beat them to make them work harder.

But the time came when God was going to deliver them, and bring them out of Egypt into the land of Canaan, where they would be a free nation. In the first few chapters of Exodus, you can read about all the plagues that the Lord brought upon Egypt, in order to persuade Pharaoh to let the people go. But sadly, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and even though the land of Egypt was devastated by those plagues, yet Pharaoh would not let the people of Israel go.

Eventually the Lord said that He would bring one last judgment on Egypt. He said that “all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die” (Exodus 11:5). There would be a night when the Lord would pass through the land of Egypt, and in every house the firstborn would be killed. However, what about the Israelites? Could the Lord kill all the firstborn of the Egyptians, and simply leave the Israelites alone? No, for the Israelites were sinners too, and deserved the judgment of God. This is where the Passover comes in.

God told the Israelites that they were to take a lamb and keep it from the tenth to the fourteenth day of the month. Then, in the evening of that fourteenth day they were to kill that lamb, and put its blood on the two side posts and the upper door post of their houses. It was on that fourteenth night that the Lord was go through the land of Egypt, and kill all the firstborn. The Lord said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). This is where the word “passover” comes from, for the Lord passed over those houses where the blood was on the door. Tomorrow we will see the significance of that blood.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:2).

How long is the rest of your time in this world? How long is the rest of my time here? We have to admit that none of us knows the answer to this question. Most of you who are reading this devotional are probably young, and if the Lord does not come, you expect to have many years ahead of you in your life down here. But things do not always turn out that way.

More than fifty years ago I was working in the emergency room of the Hospital for Sick Children in downtown Toronto. An ambulance brought in a beautiful young girl who was only twelve years old. She had been walking home from school with her friends, and a boy teased her with a large black rubber spider. She squealed and jumped back … right onto the street in front of a cement truck. We did all we could to save her life, but she was too badly hurt. At only twelve years of age, she died.

I am sure that she did not expect to die that day. She was healthy, and probably left her home that morning feeling good. But before the day had ended, the “rest of her time” had ended too.

Tragedies like this remind us of two things. First of all, it is important to know the Lord Jesus as our Savior, and to be ready if we are called to die. That girl had no chance to accept Christ at the last minute, and I hope she knew the Lord Jesus.

But there is also a lesson for us who are saved. We too have some time in this world, but none of us knows how much time is “the rest of our time.” Are we using it for the Lord, in order to have treasure in heaven, or are we wasting our time? Let us make the best use of our time down here, for how we use our time here will affect us in eternity.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men” (1 Thessalonians 5:15).

When someone has done something wrong to us, our first thought naturally is to find some way of doing something bad to them. The world has a saying, “Don’t get mad: get even!” If we do not respond in this way, we may be looked upon as cowards or “wimps.” This is true of individuals and is true of nations as well. If one nations fires missiles at another nation, the nation that is attacked will usually fire some missiles back, or perhaps find some other way of taking revenge.

Once again we find that God’s wisdom for us as believers is the exact opposite of human wisdom. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, they were new Christians who had believed on the Lord Jesus only a short while before. They had been idol worshipers, but now they knew the Lord Jesus. Paul gave them a lot of basic instruction about their behavior as Christians, and one thing he told them, as we see in our verse for today, was never to do something evil to someone who had done something wrong to them. They were always to follow that which was good.

When we do this, it does not make us look like cowards, but rather displays the grace and love of God, and opens the door for us to tell people about the Lord Jesus. If they have done something bad to us just because they do not like us, then treating them well will often make them ashamed of what they have done. We can leave the matter of the wrong done to us with the Lord. He has said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay” (Romans 12:19). If those who have wronged us never repent of it, and never come to Christ, the Lord will repay them in a coming day, and we can leave all that to Him.

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“In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).

“The Gentiles, which have not the law … shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” (Romans 2:14-15).

“Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly” (Hebrews 13:18).

Among Christians and even out in the world, we often speak of our conscience, but do you really know what our conscience is? Normally we think of it as that part of us that enables us to tell right from wrong, and that is true. But did you know that man did not always have a conscience?

When God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, they were innocent, and did not have any thought of good or evil. When Satan tempted Eve to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit, he told her that if she did so, she would know good and evil. This was true, for Satan often mixes truth with a lie. But Adam and Eve did not need to know good and evil; God had made them so that they did not have to think about such things.

However, when they sinned, they acquired a conscience, and had a sense of good and evil. As the Bible says, immediately they knew they were naked. Since then, every man and woman has had a conscience, with some sense of right and wrong. That is why God says in Romans 2 that the Gentiles, who had no law, have a law written in their hearts, for their conscience tells them right from wrong. Also, the author of the book of Hebrews (probably the Apostle Paul) asks them to pray for him, that he might live with a good conscience.

Since we have a conscience, people sometimes say, “Let your conscience be your guide.” Is this good advice? Not really, for in order to work properly, our conscience needs the light of the Word of God. Yes, we all have some sense of right and wrong, but without the guidance of God’s Word, it is easy to persuade ourselves that it is all right to do something wrong.

Our conscience is really like our eyes. We may have good eyes, but if we are in a totally dark room, our eyes cannot see. We need the light in order for our eyes to see properly. In the same way our conscience needs the light of God’s Word so that it will work properly.

When we do something wrong, our conscience bothers us, and that is good. Before we are saved, God uses our conscience to show us that we are sinners. After we are saved, God uses our conscience to convict us if we have sinned. But again, our conscience works properly only if it is guided by God’s Word.

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“And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome” (Acts 23:11).

“And now I [Paul] exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship … Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God” (Acts 27:22, 25).

These verses are concerned with the Apostle Paul’s journey to Rome. When the Lord spoke to him in our first verse, Paul had been taken prisoner in Jerusalem, and would spend two years in prison in Caesarea before being sent to Rome. But Paul knew that he would go to Rome, and that he would get there safely, for the Lord had told him so. The Lord Himself told Paul to “be of good cheer,” and after that, Paul could endure the difficulty of being held in prison for two years, and then being taken as a prisoner to Rome.

When he was finally sent to Rome, he was put on one ship, then later placed on a ship of Alexandria. Alexandria was a port in Egypt at the mouth of the Nile River, and the ship was probably a grain ship, since much of the grain in the Roman Empire was grown in Egypt. These ships were large and could carry up to 2,500 tons of grain. The ship on which Paul sailed also carried 276 people, in addition to grain. It was a large ship for those days. But the Lord allowed this ship to be broken up in a storm, and Paul and the others were shipwrecked on the island of Melita, now known as Malta.

What is important to notice is that because Paul had been told by the Lord to “be of good cheer,” and had been told how the journey would end, later he too could tell the men on the ship to “be of good cheer,” even when they were in the middle of a serious storm, and the others had given up hope of their being saved. As a result the others eventually were “all of good cheer,” and took some food, along with Paul.

The world today is in a serious state, and many are very afraid of what may happen. But you and I know where our journey will end, and we can not only be of good cheer ourselves, but can encourage others too. We can tell them how they can be saved, and how they too can “be of good cheer.” The future is always bright for the believer, for he knows where the journey will end.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“Out of the eater came forth meat [food], and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judges 14:14).

Have you ever had someone give you a riddle, to see if you could figure it out? It can be fun to think and try to figure out what a riddle means. Here in our verse for today we find a riddle that Samson gave to some young men who were invited to his wedding.

Earlier, when Samson had first come down to Timnath, a city of the Philistines, a lion had attacked him, and he had killed it without having any weapon in his hands. Later, when he came back to the carcass of the lion, he found that some bees had made a home there, and had made some honey. This was the basis of Samson’s riddle that he proposed to those young men. They made an arrangement that if they could figure it out, he would have to give them some new clothes, but if they could not figure it out, they would have to give Samson some new clothes.

The men could not figure it out, and finally persuaded Samson’s wife to ask him the answer, and then she told the young men. Samson was angry, as then he had to give some new clothes to the other young men.

But did you know that there was an important meaning to Samson’s riddle? In the Bible a lion speaks of Satan and his power. He is strong, and we read in 1 Peter 5:8 that “your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” He is definitely strong, and he is certainly an “eater.” But we know what happened at Calvary’s cross. The Lord Jesus met Satan and defeated him there. Just as Samson killed the lion, so the Lord Jesus defeated Satan at the cross. What is the result of that victory? Instead of Satan “eating up” those whom he attacks, there is food for us, and sweetness, from the victory the Lord Jesus has won. All the evil that Satan has introduced into the world has only resulted in blessing for man, for the grace of God, and the work of our Lord Jesus on the cross, has turned it into something good.

Of course, we must be willing to come to the Lord Jesus and accept Him as Savior. But then we find that instead of being attacked by Satan, we find food and sweetness.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“Therefore shall ye keep My commandments, and do them: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 22:31).

“We are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:15).

“And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments” (1 John 2:3).

We have the word “commandments” in both the Old and New Testaments, yet the words have a different meaning in each case. It is important to see the difference, for some dear believers do not understand that we, as believers in the Lord Jesus, are no longer “under the law,” but rather “under grace.” What does this mean?

In the Old Testament, the Lord gave the children of Israel the law, through Moses, and they agreed that they would obey it. The law consisted of the ten commandments, and also many other rules by which they had to live. But could the Israelites keep that law in their own strength? No, they could not, and neither could you and I. It is impossible for us, with sinful natures, to come up to God’s standard.

When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, He suffered for sin, so that you and I could have a new life in Christ — a life that wanted to please Him. Then He sent down His Holy Spirit to be the power of that new life. Today you and I do not live by a set of rules like the law of Moses, but rather by grace, and allowing that new life in us to display itself.

But then, why are there commandments spoken of in the New Testament? If we are no longer under the law of Moses, what are the commandments in the New Testament all about? Let me explain it this way. When a husband and wife get married, they may have come from different backgrounds, with different “likes” and “dislikes.” Then they have to get to know one another’s preferences. For example, my father did not like anything with chocolate in it, and especially chocolate ice cream. Do you think my mother served him chocolate ice cream? No, she never did. He did not exactly give her a commandment never to do it, but he told her plainly that he did not like it.

It is that way with the New Testament commandments. The Lord wants us to live to please Him, and in His commandments, He tells us what would please Him. Of course, they are not only to please the Lord; they are for our blessing too. If we obey them, we will not only please the Lord, but we will lead happy Christian lives. The commandments in the New Testament are not like the rules in the Old Testament, but when we know what would please the Lord, we will want to do those things that please Him.

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers

“Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

On April 20, 1999, in Columbine High School in the state of Colorado, U.S.A., two troubled young men with guns went on a shooting rampage, killing other students and boasting as they went. They eventually killed thirteen of their fellow students. One of those students was a young girl named Cassie Bernall, who was a Christian. When the shooting was going on, and the young men with guns were coming down the hall, many students hid under tables, especially in the library. Cassie was among those in the library and was probably praying. The young men approached her and asked if she believed in God. When she said, “Yes,” they immediately shot her in the head, killing her instantly.

Cassie had no time to think about what she would say; she had to decide right on the spur of the moment, facing young men with guns, whether to confess her faith in God. Her confession resulted in her being shot. She was only seventeen years old.

Are you and I ready to give an answer to those who ask us a reason of the hope that is in us? We do not normally think that a Christian would be shot and killed for her faith in a country like the U.S.A., but these young men were fanatical, and wanted to go around killing people. Another student who overheard Cassie’s voice when she said “yes” to those young men said that her voice was strong and clear. Her confession has been an encouragement to many other young people.

You might be interested to know that Cassie Bernall was not always a nice Christian girl. When she was younger, she got in with the wrong crowd, and was involved in some Satanic activities. All this escalated to such a degree that her parents actually made her go to a different high school, and would not allow her to associate with her former friends. Cassie remained rebellious, but then one evening at a Christian camp the beautiful singing reached into her soul, and she accepted the Lord Jesus as her Savior. This happened when she was sixteen. The morning of the day she was shot, she wrote a note to her good friend Amanda, saying,

“Honestly, I want to live completely for God. It’s hard and scary, but totally worth it.”

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Growing in Grace Blog by Bible Truth Publishers