Jesus Christ | Craig T. Owens

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Zero Casualties

May 19, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

The whole army then returned safely to Joshua… (Joshua 10:21).

The only time any deaths in battle are mentioned in the whole military campaign of Israel conquering Canaan is at Ai when 36 men died (7:1-5). Other than that, zero casualties.

A massive Israelite army, waging war against huge armies “as numerous as the sand on the seashore” (11:4), many of them entrenched in fortified cities, several of the warriors are giants, fighting on terrain that is unfamiliar to them—zero casualties!

But why should this surprise us?

God doesn’t see masses of people; He sees individuals. He knows how many hairs are on each soldier’s head! He is able to keep alive all His children despite the rigors of warfare.

Total victory. Zero casualties!

The casualties at Ai were due to Israel’s disobedience. The ongoing victories were due to Israel’s total obedience: “As the Lord commanded His servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and Joshua did it; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses” (11:15).

“All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the Lord, the God of Israel, fights for Israel” (10:42), with zero casualties!

We wage a spiritual warfare today that is no less rigorous or dangerous than the military campaign the Israelite army fought. God is still able to keep those who are His until He calls them home.

Missionary John Paton, while surrounded by hostile cannibals, said, “I realized that my life was immortal till my Master’s work with me was done.”

The same is true for you. Don’t fear the enemy. Don’t shrink from the battle. Obey God, and trust Him to bring you safely home to Heaven. Then you can say with the apostle Paul, as he neared the end of his campaign—

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8).

Jesus is able to keep you from falling until He brings you into His Father’s presence—zero casualties!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: God's protection, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, Joshua, Jude, military, missionary, Moses, no fear, quote, spiritual warfare, victory. 1 Comment »

Poetry Saturday—Sacred Bond

May 16, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

‘Twixt Jesus and the chosen race,

Subsists a bond of sovereign grace.

That hell, with its infernal train.

Shall ne’er dissolve, or rend in twain.

This sacred bond shall never break,

Though earth should to her centre shake ;

Rest, doubting saint, assured of this,

For God has pledged His holiness.

He swore but once, the deed was done;

‘Twas settled by the great Three One;

Christ was appointed to r’deem

All that the Father loved in Him.

Hail sacred union, firm and strong!

How great the grace, how sweet the song!

That worms of earth should ever be

One with incarnate Deity!

One in the tomb, one when He rose,

One when He triumph’d o’er His foes.

One when in heaven He took His seat.

While seraph’s sung all hell’s defeat.

This sacred tie forbids their fears,

For all He is, or has, is theirs;

With Him their head, they stand or fall,

Their life, their surety, and their all. —Anonymous

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: assurance, eternal life, God's Sovereignty, grace, hope, Jesus Christ, poem, poetry, redemption, salvation, Trinity. Leave a Comment »

Thursdays With Spurgeon—Precious Jesus!

May 14, 2020 — 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.

Precious Jesus!

Therefore, to you who believe, [Jesus] is precious. (1 Peter 2:7)

It is important, while looking at these words of the apostle Peter, that we should lay our hands upon our hearts and ask, ‘Do I know what this means? Is Jesus more to me than gold or any other thing that can be desired? Can I truly say:

Yes, You are precious to my soul,

My transport and my trust:

Jewels to You are gaudy toys,

And gold is sorted dust’? …

Dear friends, if we can verify the statement, it is not only satisfactory to ourselves but glorifying to our Lord! …

Those who are actually trusting Him and us putting Him to the test are those who have the highest opinion of Him. … Usually men feel sadness at an increase of obligation, but in this case the more we are His debtors, the more we rejoice to be so. …

How do believers show that Christ is thus precious to them? They do so by trusting everything to Him. … Our affection flows toward Him as all our hope flows from Him. … We have deposited with our Lord everything that concerns us, and we have no secondary trust wherewith to supplement His power or love. … Our implicit faith in Him proves our high estimate of Him. …

When saints have outward goods, they enjoy Jesus in them, and when outward goods are gone, they find them in Him.

From Christ Precious To Believers

Have you learned how precious Jesus really is?

The more you get to know Him, not only does His preciousness grow, but so does the hunger to know Him even more intimately! Don’t ever stop—let the Holy Spirit reveal more and more and more of this priceless Savior and Friend to you!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: 1 Peter, apostle Peter, Charles Spurgeon, intimacy, invaluable, Jesus Christ, Savior. Leave a Comment »

Prescribed & Personal Worship

May 12, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put His Name there for His dwelling (Deuteronomy 12:5).

THE place—not a place.

The Old Testament physical practices always point to the New Testament spiritual practices:

We cannot worship like everyone else does—You must not worship the Lord your God in their [pagan] way (v. 4)
We cannot worship God like it’s always been done before—You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit (v. 8)
We cannot worship God in a way that is cheap and convenient—Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please (v. 13)

Go to THE place the Lord will choose (v. 26).

**The exclusivity focus is on the Person not the place or the practice.**

Jesus said, “Not here or in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth” (John 4:20-24). And He made clear that He is THE exclusive way to the Father (John 14:6).

The apostle Paul noted that the day of the week or the type of food doesn’t matter in our worship practices; THE focus on Jesus is what matters (Romans 14).

So worship of God is both prescribed and personal:

Prescribed in that it’s only THE work of Jesus that makes worship possible.
Personal in that I worship God as me—as He created me—not by following a formula.

Paul went on to say in Romans 14 that we shouldn’t judge the sincerity of another person’s worship. If they are glorifying God—great! If not—they will have to stand before THE Judge.

We only have access to God through THE High Priest Jesus Christ. Let us always make sure that He is THE focus.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Bible study, commentary, Deuteronomy, exclusivity, Gospel of John, Heavenly Father, High Priest, Jesus Christ, New Testament, Old Testament, Romans, Scripture, Tabernacle, worship. Leave a Comment »

Thursdays With Spurgeon—Nothing Left Undone

May 7, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

Nothing Left Undone

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool. (Hebrews 10:11-13)

You see the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice rests in this: that the priest offered continually, and after he had slaughtered one lamb, another was needed. After one scapegoat was driven into the wilderness, a scapegoat was needed the next year, but this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, did what thousands of scapegoats never did and what hundreds of thousands of lambs could never effect. He perfected our salvation and worked out an entire atonement for the sins of all His chosen ones.

I infer that His work is finished from the fact that He is described here [Hebrews 10:12] as sitting down. Christ would not sit down in heaven if He had more work to do. …

But do you think my Savior would sit still if He had not done all His work? Oh no, beloved. He said once, ‘For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns’ (Isaiah 62:1). …

Oh, if the last thread had not been woven in the great garment of our righteousness, He would be spinning it now. If the last particle of our debt had not been paid, He would be counting it down now.

Oh, glorious doctrine! This Man has done it. This Man has finished it. This Man has completed it. He was the Author. He is the finisher. He was the Alpha. He is the Omega. … You are accepted perfectly in His righteousness.… ‘By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified’ (Hebrews 10:14).

From Christ Exalted

Friend, Jesus has left nothing undone that would keep you from God’s full favor!

Christ’s work on the Cross and His resurrection from the grave have removed every impediment that would keep you from God’s presence. Not sin’s condemnation, nor chaotic world affairs, nor the clamoring or godless people, nor anything you can imagine can hinder God’s favor.

Cling to this: He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Charles Spurgeon, Cross, God's favor, Hebrews, High Priest, Isaiah, Jesus Christ, righteousness, Romans, sacrifice, salvation, Savior. Leave a Comment »

A Graphical Look At Ephesians 2

May 5, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

Ephesians 2:11-21

¹¹Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—¹²remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

¹⁴For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵by setting aside in His flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the Cross, by which He put to death their hostility. ¹⁷He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. ¹⁸For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of His household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.²¹In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Bible study, Christian, Ephesians, Heavenly Father, Holy Spirit, hope, infographic, Jesus Christ, peace, salvation, Scripture. 1 Comment »

Thursdays With Spurgeon—Christ’s Gifts For The Rebellious

April 30, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

Christ’s Gifts For The Rebellious

When You ascended on high, You took many captives; You received gifts from people, even from the rebellious—that You, Lord God, might dwell there. (Psalm 68:18)

What a strange sovereignty there is about the grace of God! Truly He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, for in this instance He selects for special mention those whom you and I would have passed over without a word! ‘Even from the rebellious.’ …

‘Even among the rebellious.’ When our Lord rode home in triumph, He had a pitying heart toward the rebellious! When He entered the highest place to which He could ascend, He was still the sinner’s friend! When all His pains and griefs were being rewarded with endless horror, He turned His eyes upon those who had crucified Him and bestowed gifts upon them! …

When God gives gifts, will you turn them away contemptuously and say, ‘I like this one but the other I do not’? Did the Father bestow these gifts upon His Son? And has the Holy Spirit put them into different earthen vessels that the excellence of the power might be of God?

From Our Lord’s Triumphant Ascension

Jesus gave gifts to the rebellious?!

Yes, because that’s what we all were. Not one of us was righteous (Romans 3:23) nor worthy of His love (Romans 5:6-8)—let alone any gifts from Him! But Jesus took all our punishment upon Himself (Isaiah 53:4-6).

And not only did He take away our punishment, He gave gifts to the rebellious—to you and me! Such wondrous love!

Friend, there is a question we must all ask ourselves: How I am treating the precious gifts my Savior purchased for me?

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: Charles Spurgeon, God's gift, Isaiah, Jesus Christ, Psalm, Romans, salvation, Savior, sinner. Leave a Comment »

Our Priestly Service

April 28, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

… pronounce them clean … pronounce them unclean … (about 40 times in Leviticus 12-15).

The Old Testament priests could not cure anyone, they could only pronounce cleanness or uncleanness. Only God could cure. So when Jesus walked this earth, He showed His deity by touching lepers and saying, “You are clean,” by stopping the flow of blood that made a woman unclean, and by restoring maimed limbs and blinded eyes that kept people from entering into the place of worship.

Jesus said to His followers—and He still says to us today—“You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you“ (John 15:3). Jesus cleanses our bodies and our consciences, and He keeps us clean until He presents us to His Father in Heaven (Hebrews 10:22; Jude 24).

We have been cleansed for a purpose. What is that purpose? In short, it is for our priestly service to our world.

I find it interesting that the person in the Old Testament who was pronounced clean was then anointed in the exact same ways as the priests were when they were consecrated for service in the tabernacle (Leviticus 14:14-18, 25-29; 8:23-24, 30). When Jesus sent His followers out to minister, He consecrated them with the New Testament mandate, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, CLEANSE those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give“ (Matthew 10:8).

Not just, “Pronounce them healed, raised, cleansed, and freed,” but “Heal, raise, cleanse, free”!

Jesus has cleansed us AND consecrated us to be His ministers. He has given us His authority not just to make pronouncements, but to actually heal and deliver!

Posted in Uncategorized. Tags: authority, consecration, deliverance, freedom, Gospel of Matthew, Great Commission, healing, Hebrews, Jesus Christ, Jude, Leviticus, minister, New Testament, Old Testament, priest. Leave a Comment »

The Holy Spirit Keeps Christians “Oscar Mike”

April 27, 2020 — Craig T. Owens

Military squads dispatched to achieve an objective will receive a briefing, be given the resources they need to complete the mission, and then they will launch out to complete the task. They will report back to HQ: “We are Oscar Mike”—which means “we are on the move” or “we are on mission.”

Jesus was always Oscar Mike while He was on earth, and He has also called His followers to remain Oscar Mike with the objective He has given us.

Christians need to remember that our mission isn’t a destination and it’s not a one-time accomplishment. Without the Holy Spirit’s help, this is a difficult concept to keep in mind.

Jesus told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, which they probably interpreted as the place where He would say, “Mission accomplished.” They were thinking in terms of Jesus reestablishing Israel as God’s HQ. So we can understand how baffled they were when Jesus said, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him, insult Him and spit on Him; they will flog Him and kill Him.” In fact, Luke records, “The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what He was talking about.”

They obviously became more confused when a blind beggar stopped Jesus, and when Jesus stopped to eat at the house of a notorious tax collector. Jesus sensed their misunderstanding so “He went on to tell them a parable, because He was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.”

Christ’s parable challenged His followers to stay Oscar Mike. He explained how they were to keep on investing in people. This is exactly what Jesus was doing: using the proper verb tenses, Jesus explained that “the Son of Man came to keep on seeking and to keep on saving the lost”(see Luke 18:31-19:13).

Don’t get so focused on the destination that you lose sight of the mission.

Earth is not the Christian’s home. We are just passing through and we must remain Oscar Mike as we do.

Jesus said that being baptized in the Holy Spirit would help us stay Oscar Mike because the Holy Spirit will give us…

… vital information
… ongoing communication
… real-life application of God’s Word to our circumstances

(check out John 16:12-13; 1 Corinthians 2:10, 16; Isaiah 30:21; Romans 8:26-27; Acts 10:9-15, 28; 15:28)

If Jesus was so reliant on the Holy Spirit while He was on earth, what would make us think that we should be any less reliant?

You and I need the Holy Spirit!

Stay on mission until God calls you home. Then you can say with the apostle Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7-8).