Author Archives: Blog - Bibles for America

•

An Age-Old Question: Who is Jesus?

January 21 2019

An Age-Old Question: Who is Jesus?

We’d like to share a new gospel tract about the most wonderful person in the universe: Jesus Christ. He is both the true God and a real man. The eternal God became a lowly man named Jesus in order to save us and give us His life. Now, He wants to be everything to us. Click here to view this gospel tract on our website and share it with anyone who would like to know Jesus in a personal way.

Who is Jesus? People have pondered this question for two thousand years.

“Jesus was the founder of a religion.” “Jesus was a great philosopher.” “Jesus was a social reformer.” “Jesus is a myth.” Who is Jesus, really?

Jesus is more than a historical figure. To know who Jesus is, we first need to know why we exist. The Bible says God created us in His image so He could enter into us and be joined to us. By sharing His divine life with us, God would be everything to us, and we would express God. But before this could happen, Satan, God’s enemy, deceived man and caused him to doubt God. Mankind fell into sin and was separated from God.

God didn’t give up. Instead, the eternal God became a lowly man, Jesus. Jesus is the most wonderful person in the universe: He is the true God who became a real man, a God-man.

During the thirty-three years Jesus lived on earth, He was perfect in word and deed. He was compassionate and tender, yet fearlessly bold and frank. Jesus spoke words with authority no one had ever spoken before—words like “I am the light of the world” and “I am the way and the reality and the life.” He cared for the rich, poor, strong, weak, young, old, educated, uneducated, moral, and immoral. Jesus reached every kind of person with His love. Like a shepherd seeking his lost sheep, Jesus was God Himself seeking His lost mankind.

Loving us to the uttermost, Jesus suffered death on the cross, bearing the judgment of sin for the whole world. He died in our place to save us, however sinful and vile we may be, from the final judgment of sin—eternal death. Jesus did this for each of us.

After dying for us, Jesus rose from the dead! Only Jesus could say, “I am the resurrection and the life.” He conquered death, and in resurrection, Jesus Christ became a life-giving Spirit. Like the air we breathe, the Spirit is everywhere, ready to enter and give eternal life to all who believe in Him.

Who is Jesus? Jesus is the very God who created you and became a man to bring you back to Himself. Jesus is the Redeemer and Savior who died for you so you could be forgiven of your sins and saved from eternal judgment. Jesus is now the Spirit who longs to give His life to you, live in you, and be everything to you. He’s waiting for you to receive Him. He wants to fill you with Himself and be the joy and meaning of your life.

You can know Jesus personally. If you turn to Him, believe in Him, and call upon His name, you will be saved. Accept Him as your Savior today by praying:

“Lord Jesus, I turn my heart to You. You are the true God. I believe in You. Thank You for loving me and dying for me. Forgive me of my sins. I accept You as my Savior. Lord Jesus, I open my heart to receive You. Come live in me and be everything to me. Amen.”

You can view and share all of our gospel posts here.

View and Share

•

7 Ways to Have a New Beginning with the Lord

January 07 2019

7 Ways to Have a New Beginning with the Lord

As Christians, we desire a closer relationship with God. Whatever our experience was last year, thank the Lord, we can freshly give ourselves to daily pursue Christ this year. At the beginning of this new year, we thought we’d share seven ways for us to have a new beginning with the Lord.

The points below include inspiring and motivating quotes from well-known Bible teachers, preachers, Christian workers, and authors.

1. Love the Lord Jesus

“If you would learn to appreciate Christ more, read this book [the Bible], frequently and prayerfully.”—H.A. Ironside

To have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, it’s essential that we love Him. And our love and appreciation for Him issues from our knowing Him and what He’s done for us. The more we know Him by reading His Word, the more we love Him. We can start this new year by asking the Lord to renew our love for Him and to give us a deep longing for Him in His Word so that we wouldn’t be satisfied until we find Him, see Him, and touch Him in His Word. This is a prayer the Lord will gladly answer.

2. Spend time with Him

“I never have seen a man or woman who spent fifteen or twenty minutes alone with God every day that didn’t have the dew all the while. I have never known one to backslide, either.”—D.L. Moody

We simply need to spend time with the One we love. There is no substitute for quality time spent alone with Him, free from distractions, especially early in the morning. By spending time with Him first, before we get involved with the affairs of our day, we’ll experience Him as the refreshing dew in our fellowship with Him. It’s only by taking time to be with Him that we’ll know Christ, grow in our relationship with Him, and grow in His life.

3. Feed on Him in the Word

“The ‘good food’ is…the food of the Word of God, for as food builds up the tissues of the body, repairs waste, and preserves us in health, so the Word of God is the complete food of the soul.”—W.H. Griffith Thomas

The Bible is our spiritual food. In Jeremiah 15:16 the prophet said, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your word became to me the gladness and joy of my heart.” We must daily come to the Word hungry to taste and enjoy God, to eat and drink Him, and to be nourished and satisfied by Him. Feeding on His Word in this way imparts His life into us. If we don’t have an appetite for God in the Word, we can simply ask Him to give us one.

4. Come to Christ in the Word

“Points of truth however interesting, scriptural knowledge however profound and extensive, Biblical criticism however accurate and valuable, may all leave the heart barren and the affections cold. We want to find Christ in the Word; and, having found Him, to feed on Him by faith.”—C.H. Mackintosh

When we come to the Bible merely for knowledge or guidance, it’s very possible to miss the Lord. The Lord Jesus said in John 5:39-40, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” When we come to the Bible, we must come to contact the Lord Himself and turn our heart back to Him. We should not separate the Word from Christ, but come to find the Lord in His Word.

As we find the Lord in the Word, we can talk to Him about what we’re reading. We can also confess our sins to Him as His light in the Word shines on us. We can sing to Him, praise Him, and worship Him with what we find in the Word. Our time reading the Bible should be a time of fellowship with the Lord.

5. Linger on small portions

“For all reading should be joined with meditation and prayer. Read a little, pray and meditate much.”—John Wesley

Often we try to read too much at one time, or we read His Word too quickly. This isn’t the healthiest way to take in the Word, just as eating a huge meal too quickly isn’t so healthy for us physically. As with physical eating, it’s much better spiritually to take a small portion, chew it, and even digest it by prayer. When we chew on the Word in this way, it nourishes us and “sticks to our ribs” throughout the day.

6. Read the Bible with prayer

“The vital connection between the word and prayer is one of the simplest and earliest lessons of the Christian life.”—Andrew Murray

Our time with the Lord in His Word should be filled with conversational praying and the audible reading of the Scriptures. As we read, we can pray over the Word, even using it as our prayer. In this way, speaking the Scripture becomes our prayer to God and reading it becomes our listening to Him.

7. Focus on contacting Him, not on carrying out a duty

“The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord: but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.”—George Mueller

Rather than being a cold routine or duty, our time with the Lord in His Word is a time to delight ourselves in the Lord. This time should make our hearts happy in Him and come out of our single and pure desire for God Himself. Instead of seeking for biblical knowledge or answers to prayer, in this time we must learn to linger in His presence to enjoy Him in an intimate way.

This year, may we all have a new beginning with the Lord and continue to develop our personal relationship with Him by spending time with Him. May we learn how to nourish ourselves in His Word ever more deeply and renew and enrich our daily, personal times of fellowship with Him.

View and Share

•

A Special Time with the Lord at the Close of the Year

December 31 2018

A Special Time with the Lord at the Close of the Year

As the year ends, it’s a spiritually healthy practice for us to spend time before the Lord for prayerful reflection, giving thanks, and offering fresh consecration to Him. Besides thanking the Lord, item after item, for the many outward and material ways He’s met our needs, we can also ponder on and thank Him even more for the wonderful inward and eternal matters we have enjoyed as believers. These are the most real and lasting blessings in the universe, seen not with our physical eyes but with the inward eyes of our heart.

When we have a special time with the Lord like this, beyond our usual daily time with Him, our hearts become open and tender, and we give Him another opportunity to speak to us. Below are just a few things we can prayerfully consider to enrich our thanking and praising the Lord Jesus at the end of this year.

1. Eternal life

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 6:23 tells us that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because we have believed into Jesus Christ, we have eternal life! What is this eternal life? More than simply an everlasting life, this life is the very divine, uncreated life of God, which we received through being born again in our spirit by the Spirit. Now, we human beings share the divine life of God Himself! The perfect, rich, glorious, full, pure, unlimited life of God is now our life, for us to enjoy and live by every day.

This wonderful, unseen gift operates in us toward a particular goal, as note 3 on this verse in the New Testament Recovery Version explains:

“Eternal life is the very life of the Triune God Himself. This life has been imparted into us on the basis of our having been justified by God, and it is now spreading throughout our being through sanctification and transformation. This will result in our being conformed to the Lord’s image and our being brought into the Lord’s glory, that we may be made suitable to have a part in the manifestation of His glory (Col. 3:4).”

This is the eternal life we possess! It energizes us, spreads in us, and transforms us from within. Let’s take the time to muse on and thank God for giving us His eternal life, which will do so much to fulfill God’s purpose in us. We can thank Him for all the times we’ve enjoyed His divine life this year. We’ve been satisfied with Him as the living water, fed by Him in His Word, and experienced His riches by calling on His name. We can pray to Him for more enjoyment of and growth in His life in the new year.

2. Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, we love

“Whom having not seen, you love; into whom though not seeing Him at present, yet believing, you exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.” 1 Peter 1:8

None of us today has ever seen Jesus with our physical eyes, yet we love Him. We love and believe in someone we’ve never seen, and we’re filled with unspeakable joy as a result! How can this be? Just as the apostle Paul did in Galatians 1:15-16, each of us can testify that it is nothing of us but all of God, who was pleased to reveal His Son in us. We’ve seen an inward vision of the beauty, worth, and loveliness of Jesus. As revealed to us in God’s Word, Jesus Christ is truly incomparable. He is the true God, with divinity, and a real man, with perfect humanity; He is holy and righteous, yet compassionate and loving; He is the sinless One, yet He can sympathize with us in our weakness; He is strong and bold, yet meek and humble; He is the One who did the Father’s will absolutely, died for us, and now lives in us to be our life! We can’t help but be attracted to Him and love Him.

We can thank the Lord and praise Him for the times this year that our inner eyes have beheld the Lord Jesus in our spirit and in His Word. The more we see Him, the more we love Him. He is the most loveable One in the universe. As we gaze on the One most worthy of all our love, we can thank Him for attracting us to Himself, let Him constrain us with His love, and offer Him our love again.

3. We will be like Him

“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.” 1 John 3:2

Note 1 on this verse helps us understand what has not yet been manifested:

“Since we are the children of God, we will be like Him in the maturity of life when He is manifested. To be like Him is ‘what we will be.’ This has not yet been manifested. This indicates that the children of God have a great future with a more splendid blessing: we will not only have the divine nature but will also bear the divine likeness. To partake of the divine nature is already a great blessing and enjoyment, yet to be like God, bearing His likeness, will be a greater blessing and enjoyment.”

God’s Word tells us an amazing fact: we fallen and redeemed sinners will one day be like Him, not by anything of ourselves but by reaching maturity in His divine life. As we receive and enjoy more of the eternal, divine life and nature, little by little, this life is transforming us into the image of Christ. Through this, God gains the desire of His heart to have many sons, born with His life, conformed to the image of His Firstborn Son, Jesus Christ, to express Him.

Although we don’t usually sense we are growing in the divine life or recognize our spiritual progress, by looking back we can realize how far we’ve come. At the end of this year, we can consider the incremental, normal work the Lord has done within us and praise Him for His faithfulness to gradually bring us on to maturity in His life!

Our response to the Lord

The Lord has had such mercy on all of us this past year! As we spend time reflecting on these things and thanking the Lord for all He’s done for us and all He is to us, let us also offer new prayers of consecration to Him:

“Lord Jesus, I give myself to You for the coming year to live by and partake of more of Your eternal life so that You can grow in me. Lord, I love You. You are worthy of all my love. I give all my heart to You. And Lord, I give myself to You to cooperate with Your divine life in me so You can conform my whole being to Your image and God’s purpose can be fulfilled.”

All verses are quoted from the Holy Bible Recovery Version. You can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.

View and Share