ASI 2010: Inspired to Finish Strong

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ASI 2010 Morning Devotional

James Rafferty

To Be Anything for Jesus

To Be Nothing for Jesus

Risë Rafferty

Healed on the Way

Let's open our Bibles this morning to Matthew 11.

Our meeting this morning is entitled, Nothing for Jesus.

To be anything or to be nothing for Jesus.

Matthew chapter 11 records the trial of John the Baptist.

And it came to pass when Jesus had made an end of commanding his 12 disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.

And now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent 2 of his disciples and he said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?

And Jesus answered and said, verse 4, unto them, go and show John again those things which you do hear and see.

The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached unto them.

And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.

Let's pray together this morning, shall we?

Father, I want to thank you this morning for the opportunity that we have to be here, the blessing that you promised in the gift of your Holy Spirit, and the precious words that you've given to us in the Bible and the great gift of your son Jesus Christ as we gather to spend time in this devotional session meditating upon Christ and seeing him lifted up again and again, we pray that our hearts will be touched and transformed and that we will truly experience that wonderful statement of truth that we will be willing to be anything or nothing that we may do heart service for the Master.

Be with us to this end, we pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I really like these verses because They describe not only the dejection that we often experience as we follow Christ, the trials that we go through, but they also describe the remedy.

They give us the direction and the hope that we need as we face those experiences of darkness and discouragement.

When we feel all alone, even the times when we feel abandoned by Jesus.

You know, John the Baptist was actually thought to be the Messiah at 1 point.

He was exalted to the pinnacle of height, not by himself, but by others.

Can you imagine being asked if you are the Messiah?

And now he's abandoned in a prison cell, dark, lonely, discouraged, believing possibly that Jesus might come to rescue him, but experiencing exactly the opposite.

Have you ever been in such a situation where you've felt, believed, hoped that God would rescue you, and yet felt totally abandoned?

And so he sends a message during this time of trial to Jesus Christ, as we often do when we pray to God, why Lord is this happening to me?

And The response that comes back that Jesus sends tell him to look again at those things that I have done.

That which I have accomplished, not for him necessarily at this moment, but for the world.

I am healing, teaching, and preaching the gospel.

And this is, for us, the secret of success.

To go again and again and again to Jesus.

To behold Him, to see Him, to understand what He's accomplished for the world.

Not necessarily for us, but for the entire world.

This is our only hope and our great need.

This morning we're going to continue on with this focus because our desire is to be anything or nothing for Jesus.

John the Baptist experienced this And we want it also.

We're going to look again in the book of Revelation because this is the final word of God to this earth.

The revelation of Jesus Christ is, I believe, the fifth gospel of the Bible.

In the book of Revelation, the whole Bible begins and ends.

And when you study the book of Revelation, you study everything that God has written.

The book of Revelation is profound and difficult and challenging and yet we are encouraged to understand it.

And I believe that we can if we will look at it as a revelation of Jesus and not just a revelation from Jesus.

If you look at the book as a whole you're going to find that it is almost divided in half.

The first 11 chapters focus primarily on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now we're just looking at it in an overview.

The book of Ephesians does the same thing.

Just slip back there with me to the book of Ephesians and you're going to see the same basic outline because God, the author of his word is able to put much more into it than we many times understand.

Ephesians chapters 1, 2 and 3 ends with this verse, 321 Unto him be glory and the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.

Now what is unique about this verse 321 Unto him be glory and the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end, amen.

Now what is unique about this verse is the very last word.

Paul never does that unless he is closing out an epistle.

He never uses the word Amen unless he is closing out an epistle.

Paul is closing out, if you will, a thought, an idea.

He still has 3 more chapters for us to consider.

What Paul is doing here in Ephesians is he is dividing, if you will, the book in half.

The first 3 chapters of Ephesians focuses primarily on the gospel of Jesus Christ, what Jesus Christ has accomplished for us.

And then the second half reveals that gospel in the lives of believers.

It shows the very practical application of the gospel.

First of all, in Ephesians chapter 4, we see the gospel in church relationships.

Then we see the gospel in community relationships.

And then we see the gospel worked out in home relationships.

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.

And finally we see the gospel in work relationships.

So the first half of Ephesians focuses on the Gospel itself.

It is all Christ and the work He has done for us.

As we are saturated by the love of Christ and we take in the full picture of God's love, and this is how Paul closes Ephesians chapter 3.

He prays that we would measure the length and the breadth and the height and the depth of the love of God and know it so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

And then as he begins chapter 4, he begins to reveal how that gospel is manifest in our lives.

The book of Revelation does the same thing.

Revelation chapters 1 through 11 focus primarily on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our hopelessness, our helplessness and what Jesus has done to remedy that situation.

And that's why it is so important for us when we do our Revelation seminars, when we do our evangelistic seminars, it is so important for us to begin where God begins.

Because God has a book that is outlined perfectly for evangelism in the last days.

And this book tells us first and foremost, verse 5 of Revelation 1, that He has loved us and has washed us from our sins in His blood.

That is the first truth that people need to know.

And then the next thing they need is to see Jesus.

And so in Revelation chapter 1, verses 12 and 13, John hears a voice behind him as of a trumpet, and as he turns, he sees Jesus.

So the message here is we need to know the love that God has toward us.

We need to know what he has accomplished in sacrifice for our sins, the sins of the world, and we need to keep our focus on Jesus.

And then as we do this, revelation begins to reveal our own condition.

And we can be overwhelmed when we look in the mirror and we realize our faults and our imperfections.

And sometimes we think, well, you know, I've been a Christian now for X amount of years, 10, 20, 30.

And yet I seem to be getting worse and not better.

This is because the more we see of Jesus, the clearer we will see our own defects.

Things that have before passed our notice will be manifest in our lives.

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ASI 2010 Morning Devotional

To Be Nothing for Jesus

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