February | 2021 | Craig T. Owens

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Thursdays With Spurgeon—Adopted By God

February 4, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Charles Spurgeon. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Spurgeon” in the search box to read more entries.

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

Adopted By God

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, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. (Ephesians 1:3-5)

It is at once a doctrine of Scripture and of common sense that whatever God does in time, He predestined to do in eternity. …

Adoption is that act of God whereby men who were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, and were of the lost and ruined family of Adam, are from no reason in themselves, but entirely of the pure grace of God, translated out of the evil and dark family of satan and brought actually and virtually into the family of God. … This is an act of pure grace. …

[God] found a rebellious child, a filthy, frightful, ugly child. He took him to His bosom and said, ‘Evil though you are, you are comely in my eyes through my Son Jesus. Unworthy though you are, yet I cover you with His robe, and in your Brother’s garments I accept you.’ …

His only begotten and well-beloved Son was quite enough for Him. … And His own omnipotence was adequate enough to have created a race of beings far superior to us. He stood in no need whatever of any to be His darlings. It was, then, an act of simple, pure, gratuitous grace—and of nothing else—because He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and because He delights to show the marvelous character of His condescension.

From Adoption

I love that thought that “whatever God does in time, He predestined to do in eternity.” When Adam and Eve sinned, God wasn’t scrambling to fix the sin problem. When He said that a remedy for sin was coming (Genesis 3:15), He was talking about a plan that was already in place.

When John the Baptist said of Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29), he was only announcing what was a fact from before time began, where the apostle John described Jesus as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 5:12, 13:8)! And the apostle Paul said God “chose us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world”!

Friends, think of what this means: God saw a relationship with you—saw you adopted into His family—before you were born, even before the universe was created! What indescribable love! What amazing grace!

Do you realize your value in God’s eyes? He didn’t have to send Jesus, but He did. He didn’t have to lavish His love on you, but He does. He didn’t have to adopt you into His family, but what He has done in time, He predestined to do in eternity—from before He even said, “Let there be light” at the moment of creation.

Don’t ever buy into the lies of satan that you’re nothing special, when, in fact, you mean more to God than you can possibly comprehend!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: adoption, Charles Spurgeon, Creation, Ephesians, eternity, Genesis, God's favor, Gospel of John, grace, Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, Psalm, Revelation. 2 Comments »

Finishing Well Is Better

February 3, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

The land was at peace… (2 Chronicles 14:6).

King Asa started out so well. The beginning of his reign could best be described by the word “peace”:

The land was at peace
No one was at war with him
The Lord gave him rest
“[God] has given us rest on every side”
The Lord his God was with him

When Cush attempted to attack the nation of Judah, Asa called on God: “Lord, there is no one like You to help the powerless against the mighty. … Do not let mere mortals prevail against You” (14:11). God gave Asa a great victory over Cush, and other God-fearing people from Israel began flocking to Judah “when they saw that the Lord his God was with [Asa]” (15:9).

This peace lasted for 35 years!

And then came one poor decision from which Asa never recovered.

The king of Israel began to make preparations for war against Judah. Instead of calling on God as he did when Cush was preparing to attack, Asa reverted to political maneuvering. He sent a bribe to a rival nation, enticing them to attack Israel.

The prophet Hanani told Asa, “The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war” (16:9).

From “the land was at peace” to “from now on you will be at war” came about because Asa…

…trusted his own ingenuity instead of relying on God
…calculated his odds instead of calling on his God
…forgot about God’s past provision
…refused to confess his sin and repent from it, even when the prophet called him out
…utterly abandoned his God (16:2-12)

Starting well is good, but finishing well is far better!

A mark of a godless leader is one who refuses to confess and repent from his sin.

Asa’s refusal to admit his sin resulted in the end of his life being spent afflicted with disease and his country being surrounded and oppressed by enemies.

This is part 54 in my series on godly leadership. You can check out all of my posts in this series by clicking here.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: 2 Chronicles, Asa, confession, consequences, Hanani, leadership, repentance, self-sufficient, sin. 3 Comments »

Don’t Give In To Pseudo-Wisdom

February 2, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

Dr. Craig Bartholomew wrote, “Wisdom is deeply experiential.” In other words, we can’t just have head knowledge and call it “wisdom,” but we have to have an experience in which we have learned a lesson in order for it to truly be called wisdom.

In the three wisdom books of the Bible—Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes—the wisdom that is shared is hard-won by people who personally experienced what they shared with us. Even if we consider the wisdom in the poetic books of Psalms and the Song of Solomon, we are still reading first-person, firsthand experiences. True wisdom can never be dispensed by someone who hasn’t “been there, done that” and learned a valuable lesson from that experience.

In Job, we meet three of his friends who claim to have wisdom but don’t meet the criteria of personal experience. This pseudo-wisdom always comes in the form of, “I’ve heard that…,” or “It’s obvious from my observations…,” or “Everyone knows that….”

That means that satan’s tactics fall into this pseudo-wisdom category too: he has no personal, first-hand experience of human situations that result in hard-won wisdom! The best he can offer is secondhand observations.

Jesus, on the other hand, fully entered into the human experience. Jesus IS Wisdom. As a human He had first-hand experiences, and as God He doesn’t just see fragments of lessons, but He sees the whole, eternal picture into which all lessons fit.

This is why Solomon wrote, “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” This holy respect and willingness to heed the words of Wisdom Himself is the starting point and the conclusion of wisdom. This is also why the writer of Hebrews wrote that Jesus knows every situation that we are going through. He knows how to help us because He has personal, first-hand, experiential wisdom.

satan’s temptations are only suppositions. He can never say, “I know from personal experience.” Look at his temptations of Adam and Eve, Job, Jesus, and the apostle Paul:

Did God really say?
Does this suffering even make sense?
Doesn’t the Scripture tell us…?
I don’t think you deserve the thorn in the flesh.

Don’t give in to the pseudo-wisdom that satan pushes!

Jesus was tempted in every human way possible. He learned wisdom by this personal experience. Jesus alone is qualified to be the only source of Wisdom that you and I need to successfully handle trials and temptations.

Because He Himself in His humanity has suffered in being tempted, tested and tried, Jesus is able immediately to run to the cry of—to assist and relieve—those who are being tempted and tested and tried…. (Hebrews 2:18 AMP)

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: 2 Corinthians, Ecclesiastes, Genesis, Gospel of Luke, Hebrews, Incarnation, Jesus Christ, job, personal experience, proverbs, Psalm, satan, Song of Solomon, Song of Songs, spiritual warfare, wisdom. 2 Comments »

Learning Life’s Lessons

February 1, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

Have you heard the cliché, “Experience is the best teacher”? I don’t think that’s really true. I’ve known a lot of people who have had some huge experiences but haven’t learned a single lesson from them. Honestly this is the better statement: Evaluated and recalled experience is the best teacher.

Many of my “life lessons” have cost me money. For instance, I was told numerous times by my parents, grandparents, and my driving instructor not to speed, but I didn’t learn that lesson the easy way. It cost me financially. I recovered from that, and I’ve only had one speeding ticket in the 40 years that followed!

Most of us can recover from a financial loss. But other life lessons cost us more dearly: our broken physical health, lost intimacy in a relationship, a damaged reputation, or missed opportunities. Then we walk around with the weight of guilt, baggage, second-guessing, and regret. Jesus didn’t die on a Cross for us to live weighed down like this!

God wants to help us! So why do we wait to call on Him until after we’ve tried to do it ourselves? Or until after we’re so deep in trouble or weighed down with baggage? Perhaps we think, “This is such a tiny thing. I can handle it myself.”

Solomon said it was the tiny things that brought ruin
God told Cain that it was the sin that was crouching at his door that wanted to take him down
The devil prowls around and looks for the most opportune time to pounce on us
Which is why Paul tells us to put on all of God’s armor and prayer all the time (see Song 2:15; Genesis 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8; Luke 4:13; Ephesians 6:10-11, 18)

Portia Nelson summed it up well in her short story that I think all of us can relate to…

Chapter 1

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost… I am helpless. It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in, again.

I can’t believe I am in the same place. But it isn’t my fault.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in… it’s a habit… but my eyes are open, I know where I am.

It’s my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.

—Portia Nelson

Prayer helps us avoid the holes in our sidewalk, the crouching sin at our door, the prowling devil, and the lurking temptations. But more than that, prayer puts us on the right path to avoid all of these things in the first place (see Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 30:21; 2 Samuel 22:34, 37)!

God doesn’t have to get ready to help us; He’s already ready to help us. He’s just waiting for us to ask for His help.

No matter how little or big the challenges, with God I can overcome!

No matter how obvious or hidden the hole is, with God I can go down the right street!

No matter how many times I fall in the hole, God can get me out!

No matter how much the devil wants to bring me down, with God I can live righteously!

No matter how many times sin pounces on me and I give in to it, God can forgive me!

Don’t wait a moment longer to call on your heavenly Father in prayer. Let Him hear your voice early and often—He loves to hear from you and respond to you!