Author: BTP

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9).

Men in the world today may say that they have not seen God, nor have they seen God interfere in straightening out the mess in this world. Sin still exists, violence and crime still exist, and suffering still exists.

But there is one thing that man can see, and that is Jesus, because He came into this world and suffered for sin. He tasted death for everything, in order to take away the sin of the world. As our verse today tells us, now we as believers can see Him by faith, “crowned with glory and honor.” He is honored there in heaven, and will one day come back in power and glory, to be honored in this world. But today we can see Him as our Savior—the One who went into the suffering of death for us.

“The mystery [secret] of His will…that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him: in whom we also have obtained an inheritance” (Ephesians 1:9-11).

Here we find a further step in God’s purposes, for now He has made known to us the secret of His will. Not only did He decide in a past eternity to make His beloved Son head over all things in heaven and on earth, but He has included us in it all! God said, I am going to make My Son head over all things, but I am not going to do it, and leave Him all alone in that place. No, God chose us in Christ long before this world was made, in order to bless us in Christ, and to give us an inheritance in Him. Do we realize what a privilege this is?

God knew that sin would come into this world, and that in order to have us as part of His plan, His Son would have to suffer on Calvary’s cross in order to put sin away. And yet God made those plans away back before this world was made. He was thinking of you and me, and wanting to have us with Him.

“God…hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:1-2).

After God had spoken to man through the Old Testament prophets, He finally sent His beloved Son into the world, to show us clearly what God the Father was like. After that, man had no excuse for saying, “I do not know God, because I have never seen Him.” No, God had come down in the form of a man, so that people could hear Him, see Him, touch Him, and in every way come to know who God was.

But there is something else very interesting in this verse. It tells us God has appointed His Son “heir of all things,” and then tells us that it was by the Son that God made the worlds. At some point in the past, God created this world, but it was long before this world was created that God appointed His Son “heir of all things.” It was back in a past eternity that God determined to make His Son head over all things. Isn’t that wonderful! And then God created this world in order to work out His purposes concerning His beloved Son.

“Make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way” (Hebrews 12:13).

In our verse for today, we have some more talk about feet—our own feet. Have you ever walked behind other people and tried to walk in their footsteps? I remember doing that when I was a boy, and we were walking through deep snow. My father would walk ahead of me, and I would simply have to place my feet in his bigger footsteps. It made it much easier for me to walk, but there was a change in the way I walked. I had to keep my eyes on his footsteps, instead of watching where I was going.

How then did I know where I was going? I had to trust my father, and as long as I kept in his footsteps, I ended up at the right place. He knew the way, and he made a straight path for his feet.

We are called to do that as Christians. Whether we realize it or not, others are looking at us, and perhaps trusting us to make straight paths for our feet, so that they can follow. It is a big responsibility, and only the Lord can help us do it.

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in His [the Lord’s] way” (Psalm 37:23).

As I write this in December, 2022, we have quite a bit of snow on the ground where I live. Most of it fell during the past two or three days, and it is very beautiful before anyone disturbs it. But soon tracks begin to appear—tracks of animals, tracks of human beings, and tracks of cars, trucks, etc. Certain animals like squirrels, birds, mice, and other winter animals have very characteristic tracks, as do some human beings.

At the beginning of a new year, we have the ability to make a fresh start. What kind of tracks are you going to make? Are you going to allow the Lord to order your steps, or are you going to take your own way? If you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, He wants to order your way. It is the happy path, and if we want to follow Him, we will find that we delight in His way. We do not know how much longer we will be in this world, but the Lord wants to lead and guide us until He calls us home.

“We await the Lord Jesus as Savior, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory” (Philippians 3:20-21 JND).

Here we are at the end of another year, and once again it is good to be reminded of the Lord’s coming for us. I hope that for each of us, our first hope is to see the face of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who died for us. But something else will happen when the Lord comes too. We will instantly have glorified bodies. It will not be a “brand new” body, but rather the same body, changed into a body like Christ’s. There will be no more evidence in our bodies of aging or disease, nor will there be any marks from injuries that have perhaps left scars and disfiguring, such as happened to those soldiers that we considered over the last two days. Those believers who were blind will see, those who were crippled will walk, and those who were mentally challenged will be completely normal. What a day that will be!

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

God’s Word is sometimes like a mirror to our hearts, in that His Word exposes what we are by nature. If we are not saved, it is good to look in God’s mirror, and to realize how sinful our hearts really are. We may think that we are not all that bad, compared to other people, but when we look into God’s mirror, it is not a good picture.

But God has a remedy for our sinful hearts; He wants to give us new life in Christ. Then, like the doctor we mentioned yesterday, God does not want us to be thinking about what we were like before we were saved; He wants us to realize what we are in Christ. When a soldier had sustained a war injury, Dr. Gillies could never make his face totally right, but when God gives us new life in Christ, it is like getting a new face. That new life wants to please God.

“His visage [face] was so marred more than any man” (Isaiah 52:14).

We have already had this verse before us about six months ago, but it is always good to remember how much our Lord Jesus Christ suffered for us. But back during World War I, many soldiers had their faces severely disfigured by terrible burns, bombs, gunshot wounds, and even being kicked in the face by horses. A doctor named Harold Gillies established a hospital in England devoted to facial reconstruction, and he did his best to help restore the faces of many of those men. Of course, he could never totally repair the damage, but he made most of those faces look much better. However, there was one thing he would never allow in his hospital; there were no mirrors! He did not want a man whose face had been shattered to look at himself, and become discouraged or upset. He wanted him to wait until the surgery had been done, and his face looked a lot better. Is there a lesson in this for us? We will look at that tomorrow.

“And he made the laver of copper, and its stand of copper, of the mirrors of the crowds of women who crowded before the entrance of the tent of meeting” (Exodus 38:8 JND).

Nowadays we are used to nice mirrors in our houses, made of glass with a special coating on the back so that they reflect an image very well. However, in the days when Israel was going through the wilderness, they had to use copper mirrors. They were not as good as glass mirrors, but if they were polished well, they would reflect an image satisfactorily.

However, these women willingly gave up their copper looking glasses so that they could be melted down and used to make the laver for the tabernacle. The laver was for the priests to wash their hands and feet, before they went into the tabernacle to perform their service there.

No doubt the women thought that they could do without those mirrors, so instead of looking at themselves, they helped to build the laver for the service of the tabernacle. Tomorrow we will speak about another situation in which there were no mirrors.

“Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:9).

If you read this chapter in Matthew, you will find that the Lord Jesus sends His twelve disciples out to preach. When they preached, they were also to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out devils, etc., with the Lord’s power. They had received the Lord’s message for themselves, and they were freely to give it out. They were also to do works of miracles freely, for God is a giving God.

This is good advice for us too. We have received salvation freely, and we should freely tell others about the Lord Jesus. If we have received more than we need in other resources, such as money, we should be willing to help others. We should also be willing to do things for others in the name of the Lord Jesus, without getting paid for it. I knew a Christian man who changed a tire for a woman who was stopped on the highway with a flat tire, and did not know what to do. When she offered to pay him, he refused, telling her that He did it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then he was able to speak to her about being saved, and give her a gospel tract.