Are you a strong Christian? If so, hear what the Holy Spirit says to you: we then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. If you consider yourself strong in comparison to your brother, use your strength to serve your brothers and sisters in Christ, instead of using your “strength” just to please yourself. You should think of how you can use your superior strength to support and help your weaker brother. That’s the idea of bear with.

This goes against the spirit of our age, which tells people to look out for number themselves and often despises those who live lives of real sacrifice for the sake of others. Yet undeniably Paul points the way to true happiness and fulfillment in life: get your eyes off yourself, start building up others and you will find yourself built up.

This does not mean that the church is ruled by the whims of the weak. In a healthy church, those who are weak are gently, continually challenged to grow in Jesus Christ and become stronger. There’s something wrong when weak believers stay weak for extended periods of time.

That was God’s word to the strong. Then God had something to say to every believer, weak or strong: let each of us please his neighbor. This is a simple yet challenging call to simply put our neighbor first. Paul later wrote much the same thing in Philippians 2:3–4: Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

“Wait,” someone says. “I thought we were to be concerned with pleasing God, not pleasing man. How can it be said that I should therefore please my neighbor?” The answer is found in the next few words: let each of us please his neighbor for his good. This shows that Paul did not mean being a “man-pleaser.” Such a person may want to please his neighbor, but not for his neighbor’s good.

We do this all because it leads to edification. If you’re strong in the Lord, use the strength to build others up, instead of tearing them down. That’s a great way to honor God and further the work of His kingdom.

Scary enough. Yet even more frightening was that, according to the Associated Press story, the wife of the home didn’t wake up. Joanne Donovan slept right through it. Mr. Donovan had to shake her awake after the crash.

It’s amazing what we can sleep through. God can do an awe-inspiring work among many, but others can sleep right through it, spiritually speaking. In Romans 13:11, we find out what it takes to keep us awake, or to awaken us from our spiritual slumber.

First, Paul wrote about knowing the time. Often, when we oversleep it is because we didn’t know the time. We wake up late, and in a panic look for the time, and get a sick feeling – “I’m late! I overslept!” Spiritually speaking, if we know the time we won’t sleep when we shouldn’t. And when we look around at the world today with open eyes and an open Bible, we see that the time is short. If we really believe Jesus is coming soon, if we know the time – then we will wake up.

Second, Paul wrote about what would happen at the right time: now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The coming of Jesus, and the completion of our salvation, is closer than ever. Every day since God worked in your life and you first decided to follow Jesus, the time has become closer and closer, and the finishing of your salvation comes nearer and nearer. When we remember how wonderful it will be to have our salvation finished – no more sin, no more death, no more of the weakness of this flesh – that will keep us awake.

Right now, are you taking a spiritual nap? Perhaps there is some spiritual activity in your life, but you might as well be sleepwalking through it. So, the right prayer for you today is, “Lord, wake me up. Help me to know it is time to awaken. Get me excited about the completion of my salvation.” God loves to answer that kind of prayer.

Even if you are sleeping so soundly that if a car crashed through the roof of your house, you wouldn’t know it, God can still make you awake and keep you awake for His glory.

Only God has this depth of the riches. The wisdom and knowledge of God are beyond us, and we should always speak humbly of our knowledge of His counsels and decrees. The quotations from Isaiah 40:13 and Job 41:11 emphasize God’s wisdom and sovereign conduct; no one can put God in debt to them. You can try all you want – but you can’t out–give God. He will never need to repay a debt to anyone.

Though we can’t go to the depth of God’s wisdom and knowledge, we rest in knowing that He has all things under His care. It is stated with such simple words, we can miss the power of the truth that of Him and through Him and to Him are all things.

God’s great plan is all of Him. This plan came from God. It wasn’t man’s idea. We didn’t say, “I’ve offended God and must find a way back to Him. Let’s work on a plan to come back to God.” In our spiritual apathy and death, we didn’t care about a plan, and even if we did care we aren’t smart enough or wise enough to make one. It is all of Him.

God’s great plan is all through Him. Even if we had the plan, we couldn’t make it happen. We couldn’t free ourselves from our own prison of sin and self. It could only happen through Him. The great work of Jesus on our behalf is the through Him that brings salvation.

God’s great plan is all to Him. Ultimately, it’s not for me, it’s not for you, it’s all to Him. It is all to the praise of the glory of His grace (Ephesians 1:6). It’s for His pleasure that we are created, and we find our fulfillment in bringing Him glory and honor.

At the end of it all, we can only say this of God: To whom be glory forever. The fact that we can’t figure out God makes us glorify Him even more. When we understand some of the greatness of God, we worship Him even more passionately.

If you’re caught in the quicksand of a self-centered life, joyfully receive the liberating truth: all things are of Him, through Him, and to Him.

In the past, this plan hasn’t always been easy to understand from a human perspective. It isn’t immediately clear why God chose Jacob to be the heir of God’s covenant of salvation instead of Esau. God chose Jacob over his older brother Esau before the twins were born, and it wasn’t because God knew their works in advance. In Romans 9:11 Paul explains that it was not of works. Instead, the reason for choosing was found in God who calls and plans. It was God who decided that the older brother Esau should serve the younger brother Jacob.

In the days of Malachi the prophet, God repeated His choice, saying Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated (Malachi 1:2–3). That sounds harsh, doesn’t it? It’s a hard thing to have God against you, much less to have God hate you.

Strangely, it seems that Esau was a blessed man. He had a blessing from his father Isaac (Genesis 27:39–40). He eventually had a blessed family and all the material blessings he could desire (Genesis 33:4–9). He fathered a nation and many descendants (Genesis 36). In whatever way God hated Esau, it wasn’t a curse that cast a shadow over his entire life.

The thought in Malachi 1 and Romans 9 is much more like “accepted” and “rejected” more than our normal understanding of the terms “loved” and “hated.” God did not hate Esau in the sense of cursing him to a doomed life in either this world or the next. Yet regarding the inheritance of the covenant, it could be rightly said that God hated Esau and loved Jacob. One become the heir of the covenant of Abraham, one would not.

Our greatest error in considering the choices of God is to think God chooses for arbitrary reasons, as if His choices were random and senseless. God chooses according to His divine wisdom, love, and goodness. We may not be able to understand God’s reasons for choosing, and they are reasons He alone knows and answers to, but God’s choices are not random or impulsive.

God has an unfolding plan of the ages, and He guides all things towards the glorious fulfillment of that plan. He chooses who and what He wills according to His genius and wisdom. Though God may choose one and reject another for a specific role in His plan, all are invited to receive what God freely gives in Jesus Christ. You can rest in the wisdom and love of God today.

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JESUS CAME TO DIVIDE MEN: For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind. (John 9:39)
Jesus is the great divide of humanity; we either accept Him or reject Him. Our choice does not determine who Jesus is; it determines who we are. What we think about Jesus says more about us than it does Him.

JESUS CAME TO GIVE LIFE: I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)
In Bible terms, eternal life isn’t just long life, it is a quality of life we enjoy right now in Jesus Christ. For the Christian, eternal life doesn’t begin when we die but as soon as we receive it as a gift from our rescuing God. Jesus came to give us this life.

JESUS CAME AS A LIGHT: I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. (John 12:46)
We sing this idea in the song, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”: “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light.” It wasn’t only the streets of Bethlehem that were dark, but the whole world was in spiritual darkness until Jesus came. He brings light, not only to the world, but to every life who will receive Him.

JESUS CAME TO BRING THE TRUTH: For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. (John 18:37)
Jesus came to earth for a purpose greater than making people feel good. He came to bear witness to the truth. With the eye of your heart, look at the Babe in the manger, and consider why He came. Is He not greater than you and greater than us all? If He is, the fact of His coming matters more than any good feeling we might have or do not have. His person and His truth give us something greater to live for – something greater to give Him.

O holy Child of Bethlehem! Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!